The Post-Brexit Era Is Still To Be Written

The United Kingdom has consistently sought to benefit from the “best of both worlds” in the financial sector: access to the single market and the freedom to adapt its regulations and supervision. The renegotiation that preceded the referendum achieved this by remaining within the Union; in the context of Brexit, the ambition of the United Kingdom was to achieve this being outside the Union via mutual recognition agreements. The Union refused to go down this path, which would have increased its financial dependence on decision-making centers located in third countries. We are therefore in a situation of frontal competition in which the United Kingdom is resolutely committed to a policy of revisiting the regulatory framework of its financial sector in order to increase, partly to the detriment of the Union, its competitiveness and attractiveness via an alleviation of constraints and flexibility of regulatory responses. For its part, the Union's financial markets remain fragmented and it is struggling to improve its regulatory framework. The United Kingdom considers that having a powerful financial industry is essential, the Union has never made it a priority. Post-Brexit remains to be written, but it will be an acid test for the EU, calling for awareness of the urgency of deep reforms with the effective realization of a capital markets union including a single supervision.