Welcome to our house ! Hollande appeals to British financiers

(BRUSSELS2) François Hollande addressed yesterday at the end of the European summit, devoting in a certain way the functioning of a Europe of 27, without the United Kingdom, both a warning and an invitation to finance established in United Kingdom.

My friend is finance

The irony on edge, the French president appealed to the ghosts of Bourget. " Finance can hurt itself. It was not France, nor the speech at Le Bourget, that caused Brexit, I must modestly agree. It was the British who asked themselves whether or not they wanted to stay in the EU. ". And to issue a warning: the Euro for the City is over!

The exorbitant advantages for the City: it's over

« The City could make compensation in euros, which was the currency of exchange, transaction or compensation. It was not self-evident. It was already quite an exorbitant situation. Not being in the Euro, the United Kingdom could use the Euro. It took a whole procedure for the United Kingdom to keep this exorbitant situation (...) As soon as the UK will no longer be in the single market, there is no reason for Europe and even less for the euro zone to allow a country which is no longer a member of the EU and which has never been a member of the euro zone to continue to operate in euros. So after where would these transactions go. There are financial centers in Europe. »

Butter and butter money...

« It is not possible to keep these acquired advantages. For liberals, it doesn't look easy to admit added François Hollande in an increasingly sarcastic tone: “ Everything that is ours is ours, everything that is yours is negotiable? Well no, it doesn't work that way ».

Welcome to our house !

Where would the transactions go? wonders the President without even being asked the question: " I imagine that these transactions would take place in European financial markets. We are not there yet. We are at the beginning of the process (...) (But) what matters is that the economy can finance itself, function. » And make this call: “I hope that the European markets are preparing, as they had to, for operations that can no longer be done in the United Kingdom in the long term”.   

Commentary: a call to flight?

A statement that could be tempered during the negotiation. The French president wants to hit where he knows finance is fragile: uncertainty. By waving a possible change in the financial rules, he waves a handkerchief in the direction of the British: be careful not to drag on too much. Otherwise the markets will dictate their pace... Incidentally, they praise the merits of the financial market but also of the Luxembourg or German market, to take advantage of the situation and gain some market share. " No sense of revenge he says. Fortunately... because we feel like a small moment of tasting.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)