Frankfurt: Europe must choose between the urge to “inflict harm” on the City of London or recognise its role as the world’s biggest financial centre in elevating the continent’s standing, a top London official said in Frankfurt.
“The question for the EU is: Does it see the City of London as a European asset that it treasures and nurtures and wishes to develop for the wider interests of the people of Europe, or does it see the City of London as innately undermining the narrower interests of the European Union?” Jeremy Browne (pictured), Special Representative for the City to the EU, said at the annual European Banking Congress on Friday.
“London is a test study” in Europe’s resolve, Browne said. “We contribute massively to the capital markets and the services that are available to businesses across Europe. We very much regard ourselves not as a British asset, but as Europe’s global asset.”
Following the “natural adjustment” that will come with the UK’s departure from the EU, will the bloc “try to inflict additional harm on the City of London to make a broader political point even if that is not the interests of European Union or the wider citizens of Europe?” Browne said.
His remarks came at the end of a week-long conference that began with European financial centres making competing pitches for any financial jobs that flow out of London in the aftermath of the UK’s vote to leave the EU in June. Banks leaving London for Europe as a result of Brexit could give the continent’s capital markets a much-needed boost, said Ignazio Angeloni, a board member at the European Central Bank’s supervisory arm, in an interview on Thursday.
Banks based in the UK have started sounding out euro-area supervisors about their post-Brexit future, Sabine Lautenschlaeger, vice chair of the European Central Bank’s Supervisory Board, said on a panel at the Frankfurt conference on November 15.
“We have already many banks asking for interviews and meetings so that they can identify where are our pressure points and where our methods differ” from UK supervisors, Lautenschlaeger said. “For sure we are preparing.”
The ECB “will be prepared to welcome” banks seeking to leave the UK if it can ensure they’re not engaging in regulatory arbitrage, Anneli Tuominen, the director general of Finland’s Financial Supervisory Authority, said in an interview on Friday.
