It is now open confrontation on Brexit. The last decisive move was made by Ursula Von der Leyen herself: the president of the European commission has, in fact, started a legal dispute against the United Kingdom, for having violated the agreements. “The European Commission – said Von der Leyen in a statement released by Brussels – has sent a letter of formal notice to the UK today for breaching your obligations under the Withdrawal Agreement. This marks the start of formal infringement proceedings against the UK. He has one month to reply to today's letter ”.
"Article 5 of the Withdrawal Agreement - continues the statement - states that the European Union and the United Kingdom must take all appropriate measures to ensure the fulfillment of the obligations deriving from the Withdrawal Agreement and that must refrain from any measures that could compromise the achievement of these objectives. Both parties are bound by the obligation to cooperate in good faith in the execution of the tasks deriving from the Withdrawal Agreement”.
For its part, the United Kingdom has for now replied through a government spokesman, who told Reuters: 'We need to create a legal safety net to protect the integrity of the UK's internal market, ensure ministers can always fulfill their obligations to Northern Ireland and protect the benefits of the process of peace".
The cold shower comes right in the middle of the negotiations, when the difficulty in reaching an agreement was also, as reported by some news agencies, causing panic in the financial community. In fact, London remains the epicenter of European financial activity, but it is less and less and according to Ernst&Young the financial services companies operating in the United Kingdom they have already moved around 7.500 staff and over £1.2 trillion of activity in the European Union, with numbers expected to grow in the coming weeks.
Bloomberg reports that around 400 relocations have been announced in the last month alone: since Great Britain voted for Leavenworth in 2016, the financial sector added 2.850 locations in the EU, with Dublin, Luxembourg and Frankfurt posting the biggest gains. The European Union itself, on the initiative of the Commissioner for Financial Services, the Irish Mairead McGuinness, is ready to cut the financial sector of the United Kingdom from the common market.
The latter news was instead reported by Reuters, according to which McGuinness declared that "with the growth of tensions in the negotiations between the EU and the GB, we continue to prepare ourselves for all possible scenarios", including the end of the equivalence system. “It will not be 'business as usual' because, in any case, UK financial services companies will lose the privilege of the financial passport,” added the Commissioner.
Speaking of London's intention not to respect certain European rules within the equivalence system, McGuinness warned that such an approach "will have its obvious consequences" and that "if equivalence is guaranteed in a given area, this will have to be accompanied by commitments not to deviate from the European framework in the period covered by the equivalence”. Europe, he concluded, will continue to favor free trade but she will not be naïve in defending her own interests. And indeed she has already started the counterattack.
