Ben Chu Profile picture
12 Feb, 12 tweets, 3 min read
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/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Ben Chu

Ben Chu Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @BenChu_

11 Feb
Is the new India Enhanced Trade Partnership a “big win for Britain” and a “golden Brexit bonanza”?

🇮🇳🇬🇧✈️💵

Thread….
It’s been described that way in the UK media.

See (anonymous) government sources talking to the Sun and the Express here…2/ thesun.co.uk/news/14002022/…

express.co.uk/news/politics/…
A free trade deal with India – with its 1.3bn population, fast GDP growth and high tariff walls - would undoubtedly be a big prize...3/
Read 12 tweets
29 Jan
What's happening to UK unemployment?

Is the situation perhaps worse than it seems?

A short thread...🧵1/
Official estimates of employment (from the @ONS labour market survey) and the payrolls data (from @HMRCgovuk) both showed a sharp decline in 2020...2/
But the fall in the payrolls data was notably larger.

It suggested around 241,000 more job losses by October 2020 than the official survey data does.

That's a pretty significant divergence, equivalent to around 0.7% of the overall UK labour force...3/
Read 12 tweets
27 Jan
A part of the problem in judging this question is a major lack of transparency over the commercial agreements between pharma companies and states.

Despite involving hundreds of millions of $£€ of public money most of these contracts have not been published...
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?

And so on
Read 5 tweets
26 Jan
Is the European Union guilty of dabbling in vaccine nationalism?
💉🇪🇺

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...
Read 9 tweets
22 Jan
Thread on why Brexit has disrupted e-commerce and why it matters more than you might think

🧵💸💻

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/
Read 12 tweets
21 Jan
When can the UK economy safely re-open?

A thread

🧵💉💸🔓

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.

The results are a mixed bag....3/
covid-arg.com/post/how-soon-…
Read 14 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!