TheCityUK responds to the Brexit speech delivered by Chancellor Phillip Hammond and also to the EU's negotiation guidelines.
Miles Celic, Chief Executive Officer, TheCityUK, said,
"The Chancellor has set out a compelling case for why a bespoke Brexit trade deal should include financial and related professional services. The EU should take this as an honest and open offer to deliver the best outcome for citizens on both sides of the Channel.
“To those who say a trade deal covering financial services is impossible, this is like insisting the horse will always be the pinnacle of transport technology. It’s time to move trade forwards into the 21st century, not hide behind the limited achievements of past EU trade deals which promised so much more.
“Market access is about enabling businesses to work most effectively. Trade deals are about smooth flows of business across borders, as long as internal rules and competition is respected. Given that the EU and the UK will start with identical rules, mutual regulatory recognition is an ambitious but practical idea whose time has finally come.”
Responding to the EU negotiation guidelines published today, Miles Celic continued,
“The potential for financial services to be a necessary part of the future deal is still on the table in the draft EU negotiating guidelines. The UK has been very clear that it will be leaving both the Single Market and the Customs Union. It does not expect to have the full benefits of both. The EU says it wants as ‘close as possible a partnership with the UK’, but this simply cannot be delivered by current equivalence arrangements. Working together we must be able to do a great deal better.”
