Paris EUROPLACE participated to the fourth “FT Brexit and Beyond Summit”, which gathered over 200 stakeholders from business, politics and academia in London on 28th November 2018 to discuss what Brexit means.
During the course of this forum:
- The UK government shared its view on the divorce, transition and future relationship between the UK, the EU and other major trading partners.
- Tony Blair discussed the current draft deal and whether there will be a second referendum.
- Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister of State for the Economy and Finance, Government of France, explained that the UK and France have strong relationships and that they will keep cooperating after Brexit. She presented France’s strengths to welcome foreign investment.
- Arnaud de Bresson explained that the priority is the competitiveness of the European financial market place in a global competition. The Paris Financial Centre has improved its competitiveness as part of a long-term strategy and offers four major cards to facilitate potential relocations of international banks and investors in the context of Brexit:
- Paris is the only global city in the EU, on a par with London;
- Paris already is the no 1 Financial Centre in the EU27;
- Paris ranks first in Europe in terms of innovation, with a strong development of high-tech start-ups and fintech companies;
- The reforms introduced since the election of Emmanuel Macron have changed the image of France at international level.