Meeting in Brussels on Thursday 1 February to share their post-Brexit strategies, a number of players from the European financial sector (see other article) called on the British government to quickly make it vision of future relations with the EU clear.
Time is flying. In March, the European leaders adopted new negotiating guidelines on future relations between the EU and the UK. The president of Eurofi, David Wright, said the UK was making an enormous error in now speaking now, because once the guidelines have been adopted, it will be far more difficult to find ‘innovative solutions.’
He said the option of regulatory equivalence with the EU is not ideal because it includes many conceptual problems, is highly complex because it requires line-by-line alignment and will take time. A trade agreement along the lines of a Norway+ model, as hoped for by the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar (see EUROPE 11947), would be a better solution, he said.
But the problem remains that Europe has not yet focussed on what the UK wants. Wright said that if the UK were to call for a regulatory alignment close to the EU's, the member states would be receptive.
The head of British bank Barclays, Jes Staley, called for a Capital Markets Union +, meaning a pan-European union that would include countries from the European Free Trade Association and the UK. He made it clear that after Brexit. Barclays is planning to continue to operate in the EU via its subsidiaries in Ireland.
Staley expressed concern, however, at lack of time to make all the necessary transfers be it in terms of licences, contracts, staff or IT systems.
He said the European Summit’s December guidelines (see EUROPE 11927) showed both sides’ good will. The second phase of negotiations needs to reach as close a relationship as possible between the EU and the United Kingdom, he said, stressing the need to maintain continuity of contracts signed before Brexit.
"We assume there’ll be an agreement and that things will go well, but what if they don’t? Are we prepared for that?", asked Irish MEP Brian Hayes (EPP). He said the question also needs to be asked of how the negotiations’ outcome might affect the EU's relations with other non-EU nations.
Others in the room expressed concern about a U-turn – if the United Kingdom were to decide in the end not to leave the EU. On several occasions, Europe’s leaders have told their UK counterparts that the ‘door remains open’ but companies are already planning to relocate and some fear that this will create an even more uncertain situation. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)