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Sarkozy has stuffed us... London will pay the price
2 Dec 2009"We were done over -comprehensively." That was the private verdict today of a senior British figure close to the Brussels talks that ended with a Frenchman seizing control of City regulation for the first time in 50 years.
"The French played a brilliant hand and they stuffed us. But the price will be paid by London, say, three years down the line."
In public, Downing Street maintains a fiction that Gordon Brown had a success in getting Cathy Ashton installed as the EU's first High Representative and there is no danger from the elevation of Michel Barnier as financial services commissioner. In reality, we would have been better served by the pair doing a job swap.
The story emerging from Whitehall is that Brown and Sarkozy both wanted the City post for their countries. Typically in Brussels horsetrading, neither would get it and a small country would get an unexpected bonus. Sarkozy's genius was to convince Brown, who had backed a bid to make Tony Blair president, to grab the runner-up prize of High Rep.
Sarkozy hoped David Miliband would jump at becoming responsible for EU foreign affairs, but the Foreign Secretary declined. After that the word went out from the French that any Briton could have the job. Why was Sarkozy so desperate to secure what is a less prestigious job on the face of it? "It's all about building up Paris as a financial centre," says the insider. "At London's expense."
Alistair Darling argues that European cities should be competing with the world, not against each other. Sarkozy's vision is to challenge Anglo-Saxon capitalism in the Square Mile.
Britain is now on the back foot.
Reader views (4)
Maybe Sarkozy thinks the "anglos" have made such a complete hash of regulating the banks that the French could do better.... adnd maybe he has a point.
- Alan Combe, London, 29/01/2010 12:44
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Brown gave the job to Sarkozy as the final act of his scorched earth policy.
Sarkozy wants banks in france and he will get them. Brown has raised taxes in order to force businesses out of the UK and Sarkozy is thankful.
The far left of the UK [ Brown, BBC, Mandelson] have done the UK over, Sarkozy cannot believe his luck.
- Dashingstud, Leeds, 03/12/2009 02:03
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The winner ... will be Switzerland.
- Nigel, London, 02/12/2009 15:57
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Given the untapped greed of the banks and the rise of the super-rich under a light-touch free market ethos, I can hardly believe Sarkozy's vision is a bad thing.
Alongside emerging reports of the unethical investments the taxpayer has inadvertently funded, through propping up certain banks, is it not time we had a complete overhaul of a system that brings huge rewards to a minority, to the detriment of the majority?
- Phillip, London, 02/12/2009 15:05
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