Is the European Union really being unreasonable over the City of London?
Or are we seeing an inevitable consequence of a Brexit that prioritised sovereignty over financial services?
A thread…🧵💵🏦🇬🇧🇪🇺
Andrew Bailey’s Mansion House speech this week showed clear signs of frustration about the EU’s foot dragging in granting “equivalence” to UK regulators on financial regulation...2/bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2021/fe…
The view among UK financial lobbyists and regulators is that the EU has various financial equivalence agreements already with a host of other third countries (even the US) so why not the UK, which is currently, of course, totally aligned?...3/ ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf…
But the view in the EU is that the UK is different from those other countries because it’s so dominant in finance - and they fear outsourcing regulation to an authority outside the bloc when that regulated activity could potentially affect EU markets/business so profoundly ...4/
Andrew Bailey thinks the EU is gearing up to demand the UK be a simple “rule taker” in return for equivalence, unable to unilaterally change UK rules, which he says would be "intolerable"....5/
But isn’t the EU just trying to poach business from the City?
To some extent yes – especially true among French.
But don’t discount the financial stability concerns, especially since UK ministers have said they intend to use Brexit to diverge on regulation...6/
In a way the UK and EU views on this are a mirror of each other – both fear the consequences of diluting total regulatory control on finance...7/
In a sense this shows that this IS a natural consequence of Brexit.
When the UK was in the EU both co-operated to determine financial regulation.
Now there’s no institutional mechanism to force co-operation, build trust, ensure enforcement etc...8/
So labelling each other unreasonable arguably misses the point - it's not a question of mental state, but an absence of institutional architecture...9/
An important question is what happens if the EU DOES demand, as Andrew Bailey fears, the UK become an EU rule taker in return for equivalence?...10/
My conversations with the sector suggest that this would NOT be judged a price worth paying and that the City would, with regret, give up on the EU and focus on other overseas markets.
Given the value of UK exports to the EU market that would be painful for both parties...11/
So when claims are made by the two sides in a row like this about breach of contract/terms of agreements etc it's impossible for analysts and journalists to check them.
That's obviously deeply unsatisfactory and actually undemocratic...
When AstraZeneca claims its agreement with the EU was to provide vaccines on a "best efforts" basis how do we know that's accurate?
When the EU claims AstraZeneca has failed to fulfill its delivery schedule how can we check what that delivery schedule actually was?
Is the European Union guilty of dabbling in vaccine nationalism?
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The EU Commission's dispute with AstraZeneca over vaccine deliveries shortfalls is clearly big and serious.
But what should a fair-minded person make of the row?...
The essential situation is this.
AZ claims it’s had some vaccine production problems at its EU plant & while it accepts the EU has a right to be aggrieved at the shortfall, it say the EU's reaction - threats of legal action and blocking its exports - is way over the top...
The EU Commission says it has not had enough credible information from AZ to explain the shortfall and, moreover, seems to distrust the company...
Thread on why Brexit has disrupted e-commerce and why it matters more than you might think
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We’re getting lots of reports of people being hit by unexpected VAT charges and delays on their online deliveries when the vendor is in Europe.
Why is this happening?....1/
UK customers buying goods from relatively small EU vendors before Brexit could pay their VAT at the point of transaction under the EU’s distance selling regulations.
And, importantly, these vendors could charge the local rate of VAT and deal with their own tax authorities....2/
Since 1 Jan our online buyers don’t benefit from these EU regulations.
The EU vendor now has to register with HMRC and charge UK VAT in order to ship to UK (a big hassle and many won’t bother) or ship the item to the UK and let the buyer pay the UK VAT owed upon receipt...3/
Reports suggest Downing Street is looking at easing restrictions in England from early March, with a return to the regional tier system...1/
But question is: will the vaccination programme have reduced pressure on the NHS sufficiently by March to enable restrictions to be eased by then?
Or could this be another policy fiasco like delaying November lockdown or Xmas Day re-opening?... 2/
The COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group @COVID19actuary has modelled the impact of the government achieving its 14m vaccination target on hospitalisations and deaths.