Canada rules will lose “British voice” after Brexit, says Lord Jonathan Hill
Rules governing Canada will lose their “British voice” following Brexit, the UK’s outgoing EU commissioner has warned.
Lord Jonathan Hill does not believe British banks and financial institutions will escape EU rules whatever the terms of Brexit and will have to fully adopt them if they want access to the single market.
“Rulemaking will continue at a global level and at a European level . . . who is in the room and who has the critical heft is extremely important in how rules end up,” Hill told the Financial Times. “The nature of the rules you have to be equivalent to, or passporting into, are going to shift.”
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He said that the voices of countries such as France, German, Netherlands and Ireland “will clearly be heard”.
“The nature and the shape of the financial services industry in France or in Germany — from the banking and any other point of view — is pretty different from what it is in the UK,” he added.
“So the direction of how policy will evolve will reflect those different voices, without the British voice in there to balance.”
Read more: UK's European commissioner Lord Hill resigns after Brexit vote
Hill announced he would be stepping down from his role on Saturday, saying he was “very disappointed” with the result of the referendum.
He said in a statement: “I wanted it to end differently and had hoped that Britain would want to play a role in arguing for an outward-looking, flexible, competitive, free trade Europe. But the British people took a different decision, and that is the way that democracy works.”