The top representative of the City of London Corporation on Tuesday began a two-day visit to Luxembourg that includes meetings with Luxembourg for Finance, financial regulator CSSF, the finance ministry and representatives of the grand duchy’s banking sector.
The delegation is headed by Chris Hayward, chairman of the policy committee of the City of London Corporation, the municipal governing body of London’s financial centre which also is active to promote its economic development. It’s Hayward’s first visit to Luxembourg after he was elected as chairman in May last year.
Speaking to Investment Officer Luxembourg at the start of his visit, Hayward said he will advocate “open and closer markets” which he believes will be in the interest of both Luxembourg and the City of London. The visit is seen as a “catch-up” after the Covid-19 pandemic and after Brexit and is designed to “work closer together” and “adopt a new relationship”, Hayward said.
Post-Brexit
Hayward said his visit seeks to improve relations between the two financial centres in the post-Brexit era, which since 2016 resulted in the loss of approximately 7,000 City jobs as financial firms relocated to continental Europe. Luxembourg, next to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, was seen as one of the favourite locations. Brexit also led to a complete halt in EU-UK discussions on cooperation in financial services.
In Luxembourg, he will meet with Nicolas Mackel, the head of Luxembourg for Finance, and Claude Marx, the director general of financial supervisor CSSF, as well as with other senior representatives of banks.
The agenda for his discussions includes the Windsor Framework, which is a post-Brexit legal agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom announced last February. The framework addresses problems with the movement of goods between the EU single market and the United Kingdom in the Northern Ireland protocol.
EU-UK talks on financial services
Following the Windsor Framework agreement, the EU and UK can now press ahead with discussions on financial services that will also encompass a bilateral financial regulatory dialogue.
Hayward said he also expects to address the current discussions over clearing with his Luxembourg counterparts. A discussion hosted by Luxembourg for Finance last week made clear that there are still different opinions on this topic at both ends of of the Channel.
Other topics to be discussed during Hayward’s visit include fintech and crypto regulation and sustainable finance. The recent adoption by the European Parliament of new rules for crypto currencies and tokenization, known as MiCA, shows there is a need to overcome the “vagueness in definitions of digital assets”, Hayward said.