The quotes from Sarkozy don’t seem to record him saying, “Mu ha ha ha!” or rubbing his hands together in glee, but the Times – and British Banking and Alistair Darling – are united in outrage at the suggestion that the new Commissioner for the Internal Market of the EU is going to eradicate, once and for all, the evil scourge of the Anglo-Saxon model.
The French president rubbed salt in the wounds of Gordon Brown, British prime minister, by announcing to Le Monde: “It’s the first time in 50 years that France has had this role. The English are the big losers in this business.”
In the same piece, the man at the heart of this story – Mr Michel Barnier – has attempted to calm fears, by insisting that his objective is to strengthen all the financial centres of Europe. He wants to,
“…express the common European interest, learn the lessons from the crisis, including in the interests of the City and to strengthen that and other financial centres, such as Frankfurt and Paris, for the European economy”
Hmmm. I suspect few will be reassured by these sorts of noises. The financial centres of Europe have been in competition with each other, and London has been comprehensively trouncing its competitors thanks to lighter regulation, taxpayer guarantee of the whole industry and profitable property bubbles.
One very obvious way to ‘strengthen’ Paris and Frankfurt would be to remove any competitive advantage London might have – equalising the regulatory playing field, so to speak – and I’ve no doubt that many people will believe that regulating (to prevent the last crash happening again… because yes, people really are that stupid) and moving away from the Anglo-Saxon model would count as “strengthening the City.” Because, you know, us Capitalists in Britain with our shamelessly economically liberal government are completely wrong, dinchyaknow?
Yet the reality is that any business driven away from London won’t go to other European cities. It’ll leave Europe altogether. Fine if you don’t depend on Financial services to avoid your economy tanking altogether, but, sadly, we do.
What seems certain is that Barnier does intend to use his position as Commissioner for the Internal Market to regulate, at the European Level, financial services, and it will be interesting to see whether our Government has any power to resist. Whatever his intentions and motivations, whether he believes himself to be ‘helping’ or hurting us, I think EU wide regulation of Financial services and a “level playing field” will harm British interests.
What kind of man is Michel Barnier? Admittedly most things written about and by him are in French (which I don’t speak), but here’s a piece he wrote for the Guardian about “Food Security”:
The reliability and size of the European Union‘s farm output means that it can and should play the role of regulator in global markets. If Europe cut back on its agricultural production, the increase in its own food imports would contribute significantly to a worldwide increase in food prices. This makes it imperative that EU food production levels be held steady – for the sake of Europeans and of people in the world’s poorest countries.
For the sake of people in the world’s poorest countries it’s essential not to buy food from them or allow them to create a mature agricultural economy so they can trade their way out of poverty? Hmm. Colour me unimpressed.
Barnier appears to be a protectionist at heart – certainly he’s no advocate of Free Trade, and he’s the man in charge of the EU’s Internal Market. This is one EU Commissioner that needs to be monitored very closely.
