Would the EU be ready to accept a return of the United Kingdom?

After Brexit, the Breturn? Ten years after the referendum in favor of leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom is remorseful, but the 27 do not seem ready to open their arms to it any time soon.

In recent months, opinion polls have shown that a clear majority of Britons are now convinced that leaving the EU, through the referendum of June 23, 2016, was a mistake.

This turnaround has pushed commentators to imagine new expressions inspired by the term Brexit to describe the opposite phenomenon, a hypothetical return of the United Kingdom to the EU: "Bregret", "Breturn", "Breunion"...

Beyond the puns, this above all fuels lively political debates in the United Kingdom on the strategy to follow.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's most serious rival within the Labor Party, Andy Burnham, believes leaving the EU was a mistake and has said he hopes to one day see his country rejoin the European family. Without committing, however, to a possible candidacy or a timetable.

An option ruled out so far by the head of government, who is content to work for a warming of relations with the 27.

And it is not certain that the EU would accept Great Britain's re-accession.

AFP interviewed half a dozen European diplomats, who all said their countries would be open to it. But on condition that the British are ready to make sacrifices, which most doubt.

“They are not prepared to accept the constraints associated with EU membership,” said one of them.

- In no hurry to open the debate -

And the 27 are in absolutely no hurry to open this debate.

Several countries believe that the EU is doing better since the break with London, and do not regret the quarrels which poisoned the bloc when the United Kingdom was part of it.

"It's easier" since London left, because "on each file, we no longer have to spend time negotiating exemptions", believes another diplomat.

Despite decades of membership in the European Community and then the EU, London has never participated in the euro or the Schengen area, and had even negotiated during the time of Margaret Thatcher a rebate on its budgetary contribution (the famous "British discount").

So many attitudes which reflected, in the eyes of other member states, a glaring lack of commitment.

For a second diplomat, the departure of the British had, however, an unfortunate consequence: a less good command of the language of Shakespeare in official EU documents...

Others, however, cultivate very good memories.

- "The EU has changed" -

Sébastien Maillard, expert from the Chatham House think tank, underlines that with separation, EU countries advocating economic liberalism or pro-Atlanticism have lost an influential counterweight, facing the sovereignist ambitions of