HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ
27/02/2020 AEFR Visiter le site sourceExecutive Vice President
Dombrovskis
Dear Executive Vice President Dombrovskis,
UK’s preparations for assessments of financial services
equivalence
I look forward to speaking in our conversation later this week and
in the longer term, to a friendly and constructive relationship
working together in areas where we share common interests – in
particular financial services, customs and tax, and climate change.
I am sure we will also be able to achieve some important progress
as we work together towards our hosting of COP26 in partnership
with Italy. I understand you recently had a productive meeting with
Mark Carney - his role as Finance Advisor for COP 26 will be very
important, and my department will be working closely with him on
this.
I wanted to write to provide some detail on the UK’s preparations
for assessments of equivalence now that the UK has left the
EU.
Both parties have agreed to start assessing equivalence with
respect to each other under their respective frameworks as soon as
possible after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the Union,
endeavouring to conclude these assessments before the end of June
2020.
The UK is committed to meeting this deadline and we are ready to
work collaboratively over the next few months to ensure we can both
do so. At the end of the transition period, the UK and EU will
start from a position of regulatory alignment. The UK and the EU
should be able to conclude equivalence assessments swiftly and I
see no reason why we cannot deliver comprehensive positive findings
to the June timeline (though I note that the date has not been
included in the EU’s mandate agreed on the 25th
February).
To help support these assessments, and recognising that the
Commission have previously stated that equivalence from the outset
involves dialogue with third country authorities, we are ready to
begin working with your team in a structured way so that we can
both progress our assessments of each other. I propose we do this
by establishing a dialogue for the exchange of information to
support our autonomous decision-making on equivalence. As such, I
have asked my officials to reach out to their counterparts on your
side to initiate discussions on equivalence, establish a programme
of meetings to work efficiently through the issues at hand, and
provide initial technical information on the UK’s equivalence
framework and regulatory regime.
The negotiations about our future relationship are of course being
handled on a different track. But I would like to reiterate here
that the UK is committed to working with the EU to build a friendly
future relationship on financial services which is based on
cooperation between sovereign equals. We have published our own
paper setting out our approach to these negotiations, including on
financial services. Our negotiators will be discussing this in
Brussels next week.
I look forward to welcoming you to London soon.
I am copying this letter to: Sir Tim Barrow, UK Ambassador to the
EU; David Frost, Prime Minister’s Sherpa and EU Advisor; Alok
Sharma MP, Secretary of State Department for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy; Katharine Braddick, Director General Financial
Services, HM Treasury; and John Berrigan, Acting Director General,
DG FISMA.
RISHI SUNAK