Chancellor Rishi Sunak tells EU: Stick to June timeline for City equivalence decision
UK chancellor Rishi Sunak has told the European Union to stick to a June deadline to work out which parts of Britain’s financial system will be deemed equivalent after Brexit.
British banks, trading platforms and insurers are hoping to be granted access to EU markets under a so-called equivalence system, under which the bloc would deem the UK’s standards to be as rigorous as its own.
In the political declaration section of the agreement reached in the autumn, the two sides said they would “endeavour” to finalise which parts of the City would be deemed equivalent by June 2020.
However, tensions rose when the EU published its negotiating objectives last week and did not commit to the timeline.
Sunak has today written to EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis to urge the bloc to honour the June date.
The EU has in turn accused the UK of turning its back on the political declaration after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government moved away from commitments on standards.
“The UK and the EU should be able to conclude equivalence assessments swiftly and I see no reason why we cannot deliver comprehensive positive findings to the June timeline,” Sunak said.
He said the process should be made easier by the fact that, “at the end of the transition period, the UK and EU will start from a position of regulatory alignment”.
Sunak also announced he has asked his officials to reach out to the EU to kickstart talks.
He said his team has been told to “initiate discussions on equivalence, establish a programme of meetings to work efficiently through the issues at hand, and provide initial technical information on the UK’s equivalence framework and regulatory regime”.
The new chancellor, who replaced Sajid Javid last month, told Dombrovskis that “the UK is committed to working with the EU to build a friendly future relationship on financial services which is based on cooperation between sovereign equals”.