British-based financial institutions must be prevented post-Brexit from selling their services in the eurozone, Emmanuel Macron, the likely progressive left candidate for the French presidency has told The Guardian.
He said a ban on so-called financial passporting rights, seen as potentially highly damaging to the City of London and one of the most fraught issues in Brexit talks, “should not be seen as a technical issue but a matter of sovereignty”.
Financial services passporting allows banks and other financial companies, like insurers and accountancy firms, to operate across the European Union based on their authorisation in a single member state.
Macron, currently the best prospect of preventing a rightwing victory in next year’s presidential election, added he could not see how the UK could be granted a financial passport unless it contributed to the EU budget in the same way as Switzerland and Norway.
But Macron insisted: “The financial passport is part of full access to the EU market and a precondition for that is the contribution to the EU budget. That has been the case in Norway and in Switzerland. That is clear.” The proposal would be rejected outright by British Eurosceptics.
He also gave no ground on free movement of EU workers, saying any concessions that allowed the UK to exclude some EU citizens would lead to the disintegration of Europe.
Macron’s remarks are a fresh sign that leading French politicians jockeying for the presidency are in no mood to offer concessions to the UK.
Macron, 39, resigned from Hollande’s unpopular government last week, to set up new movement “En Marche” and assemble his “progressive diagnosis” of French ills ahead of a decision on a presidential bid in a couple of months. With only two years in mainstream politics, he is seen as an intriguing wild card who could thwart either Nicholas Sarkozy or the Front National of Marine Le Pen.
He was in London to help build a campaign war chest as large as €12m (£10m) and claims 75,000 people have joined his movement since it was launched. Describing his position of third in the polls as “a good beginning”, he insists he can be the catalyst to disrupt and break the classical outmoded left-right political blocs.
Macron’s remarks on passporting run counter to claims made by both Philip Hammond, the chancellor and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, that passporting rights will be preserved. Hammond told MPs this week that any attempt by the EU to split off euro-denominated clearing would not benefit the EU, with business instead drifting to New York.