British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt signed a cooperation agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union related to the regulation of financial services, in a step that testifies to the improvement of relations between the two sides.
The signing of the agreement with the Commissioner for Financial Services in the European Union, Mered McGuinness, came on the occasion of the British Minister’s first visit to Brussels in three years.
Hunt welcomed this “important shift”, considering it “not the end, but the beginning” of an in-depth dialogue with the European Union.
In March 2021, Brussels and London reached a memorandum of understanding that had not yet been signed. Relations between the two sides worsened over the amendment of trade rules in Northern Ireland.
Financial services, the engine of the British economy, accounted for 11 thousand billion pounds (12,790 billion euros) in 2020, of which 44 percent were for international clients, including the European Union.
Cooperation at the present time is limited to exchanging information and coordinating positions and priorities for major international meetings, away from the “passport” or its equivalents that the sector initially hoped for before Brexit in order to be able to work in the European Union.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency