Luxembourg’s ‘provocative’ Brexit solution for financial services
By Will Grahame-Clarke, 1 Nov 17
In a speech examining the impact of Brexit on European Financial Centres Luxembourg finance minister Pierre Gramegna says the UK has five Brexit options to choose from.
Speaking at the London School of Economics last week Gramegna encouraged the UK to be creative and take features of the different options as templates in the negotiations.
From a European perspective he said the EU needed to respect the democratic decision, not punish the UK and drop the dramatics on both sides to find the best solutions available.
For Luxembourg’s part he said companies could follow Citigroup, JP Morgan and Bank of Singapore by expanding in the principality, which while it wouldn’t engage in any regulatory arbitrage, would accept filings in English, offer ‘excellent service’ and most importantly, he argued, address the uncertainty by guaranteeing access to EU markets beyond March 2019.
The five options are on a sliding scale of market access and cooperation, including a ‘provocative’ outlier not yet considered:
The Norwegian Model
The Norwegian Solution inside the EEA has more or less guaranteed passporting rights and full access to the single market but with some consequences.
However, Norway must accept EU legislation and accept free movement of people, which would be politically rather difficult for the UK, notes Gramegna.
Tags: Brexit | Luxembourg
