Leaders welcome Burnham's prospect of UK rejoining EU

France's President Emmanuel Macron has described suggestions from the United Kingdom's Prime Minister Andy Burnham that Britain could rejoin the European Union as "excellent news".

"Welcome back", Macron said in English at a news conference in Madrid on Wednesday, alongside Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

"If the British want to come back and if the prime minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news both for his country and for Europeans," he added in French. Sanchez said Spain would welcome Britain back "with open arms".

Reports from Brussels, Belgium — the EU's headquarters — indicate the UK leader can expect the bloc to demand significant concessions in any future negotiations.

The UK prime minister has been cautioned that EU member states would resist any attempt to selectively adopt parts of the bloc's rules, The Times reported.

Burnham's proposal drew a cautious response from EU officials, with warnings that the UK would face extensive terms for any return.

EU officials told The Times that the UK still appears to believe "the EU needs us more than we need them".

One diplomatic source told the newspaper, "It's refreshing to see the red lines dropping away with Burnham but rapprochement will only come with Britain showing will and realigning with rules from which it supposedly broke free."

Negotiations on closer ties between the UK and EU have advanced slowly since former prime minister Keir Starmer launched his diplomatic reset with Brussels.

Burnham, who replaced Starmer in July after a revolt by Labour members of Parliament, said in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday that rejoining the EU was one possible answer to the question of Britain's future relationship with Europe.

The UK prime minister had told Labour's annual conference earlier this week that he would outline "different options" for ties with Brussels ahead of a planned summit with the bloc later this year.

According to Agence France-Presse, Macron also praised the UK's past contributions to the bloc, saying the British had "always been useful in helping us simplify things" and were "demanding partners"." Andy Burnham is right to have this boldness," he added.

But the French president cautioned that there were limits to closer ties if the UK stayed outside the union, a decade after the Brexit vote to leave the bloc. "You cannot choose between the freedoms of the union and decide to take what suits us and not the rest," he said.

Sanchez echoed that view, describing Brexit as "a huge loss, both for the British population and for the whole European project". Should the UK seek to rejoin, "then of course Spain would applaud it and open its arms again to a brotherly people", he added.