Emmanuel Macron says there will be no special Brexit deal for the City
French President Emmanuel Macron tonight reiterated his tough stance on financial services access to..
French President Emmanuel Macron tonight reiterated his tough stance on financial services access to the EU market after Brexit, saying there would be no special deal for the City.
Macron said there can be “no differentiated access to financial services” for nations outside the EU, and that the UK would have to choose between the Single Market’s status quo or a Canada-style trade deal with more restrictions.
The remarks came during the French President’s first official visit to the UK since his election last year. Macron, who said he was here “neither to punish nor to reward”, emphasised the “very strong human bonds” between the two nations.
Read more: French finance chief says Brexit won't be a catastrophe for the City
Theresa May hosted Macron at Sandhurst, the military’s officer training base, in a move designed to emphasise joint defence efforts in what she called the “enduring alliance between the UK and France.” She also pledged £45m in extra funding to border security to Calais.
Warnings about Brexit's impact on the City have been overblown, according to French finance chief Christian Noyer, who this morning told the BBC: “I do believe that in any case London will remain the most important financial centre.”
Noyer, formerly the governor of the Bank of France, and is now leading French efforts to persuade banks to pick Paris as a location after Brexit, but he said that even if London does lose jobs “it is not a catastrophe for the City."
Read more: One year into Brexit and we’re no closer to a deal
His comments were echoed by the City of London Corporation’s policy chair Catherine McGuinness. She said that job losses will be at the lower end of previous predictions which ranged from 3,000 to 75,000 people, but repeated her call for mutual market access for EU and UK financial services.
“What we would really like to see is an ambitious free-trade agreement reflecting the fact that this country has always been an ambitious trading country, covering services as well as goods,” she told the BBC.
The City of London believes jobs will be lost to existing global centres like New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, rather than moving to cities such as Paris or Frankfurt, although some jobs will move to the EU in order to continue serving clients in the Single Market.
Read more: Bank of England says Brexit trade deal with financial services is doable
