2023-06-27 17:06:06
For the time being, collaboration will remain limited to the exchange of information and the coordination of positions and priorities for major international meetings.
British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt on Tuesday signed a cooperation agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union on financial services, a step forward which testifies to a warming of relations across the Channel.
Mr Hunt signed the deal with EU Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness on the first visit to Brussels by a Chancellor of the Exchequer in three years.
He hailed “an important turning point” and considered that it was “not the end, but the beginning” of an enhanced dialogue with the EU.
Brussels and London had already reached such an agreement in March 2021, but it had never been signed due to disagreements over the application of post-Brexit trade agreements in Northern Ireland.
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve turned a page in our relationship,” Ms McGuinness said.
Financial services, the engine of the UK economy, accounted for 11,000 billion pounds (12,790 billion euros) in 2020, of which 44% on behalf of international clients including from the EU .
For the time being, collaboration will remain limited to the exchange of information and the coordination of positions and priorities for major international meetings, far from the “passport” or equivalences initially hoped for by the sector before Brexit in order to be able to exercise in the EU.
The cooperation agreement signed on Tuesday “lays the foundations for a new era of cooperation with our partners in the EU”, reacted in a press release Chris Hayward, director of policy for the City of London, the organization promoting the London’s financial district, and by extension one of the sector’s spokespersons in the country.
It “will help UK financial services to re-engage in productive discussions with the EU, for the benefit of both our economies,” he continued.
The exit from the EU, which became effective in January 2021, took the form of a “hard” Brexit for financial services, while goods were the subject of a free trade agreement.
Relations between the EU and the United Kingdom have improved since the conclusion at the beginning of March of the “Windsor framework” intended to facilitate the movement of goods within the United Kingdom by avoiding any physical border with Northern Ireland, which remained in the single European market.
The UK is also seeking to rejoin the European Union’s €96 billion Horizon Europe research programme.
Mr Hunt said the financial details were currently being negotiated. “We have very good discussions, and difficult discussions can be friendly discussions,” he added.
Ms McGuinness said she supported ‘further discussions’ to get ‘an outcome’.
British scientists fear the impact of a lack of funding under the Horizon program, designed to help fund scientific breakthroughs.
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