EU Wants UK Reassurance Divergence From EU Rules Won’t Be Too Big to Offer Financial Market Access

Great Britain should unveil how far it is going to diverge from the EU rules if it hopes to have access to the bloc’s financial market from January, head of the EU executive’s financial services unit, John Berrigan, said, as quoted by Reuters.

“There will be divergence, but we have to get some mutual understanding of how much divergence is likely to happen,” the official said, according to the agency.

This comes after the UK and the EU resumed trade talks last week, with both sides seeming to work hard to reach an agreement on a range of differences which have been preventing them from a keenly anticipated breakthrough.

Lead negotiators Michel Barnier and Lord Frost are scheduled to meet in Brussels on Thursday as everyone involved in the negotiations hopes to see an agreement in the coming weeks. The points on which the two sides have been trying to reach some compromise are who has the right to fish in British waters and common standards, including controls over state subsidies for businesses.