Britain has urged Brussels to honour a June deadline for granting market access rights that the City of London will rely on when the UK’s post-Brexit transition period runs out at the end of the year.
In a letter published on the same day that Britain and the EU began negotiations on their future relationship, Rishi Sunak, chancellor, told the European Commission that he could “see no reason” why both sides could not complete the necessary approvals on time.
The letter, dated February 27, underlines the UK’s urgency in aiming to secure access rights for the country’s financial services firms from Brussels that will cushion any blow from leaving the single market.
The EU has insisted that future access arrangements must be based on equivalence, which is the same system it uses for other non-EU countries. Around 40 different equivalence provisions are scattered across the EU’s financial services laws, dealing with issues such as the ability of Europe’s companies to use clearing houses and stock exchanges located outside the bloc. [...]
Mr Sunak said in his letter, addressed to EU financial regulation chief Valdis Dombrovskis, that “the UK and the EU should be able to conclude equivalence assessments swiftly”.
“I see no reason why we cannot deliver comprehensive positive findings to the June timeline,” he wrote.
Diplomats said the two politicians spoke on Monday about the letter, which included a proposal for meetings between EU and UK officials “to support our autonomous decision-making”.
Mr Sunak acknowledged in his letter that “the negotiations about our future relationship are of course being handled on a different track”. [...]
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Chancellor letter to Valdis Dombrovskis on financial services equivalence
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