Christian Noyer told the Financial Times that there was “no rationale” for allowing the eurozone’s financial centre to be “offshore”.
“Most of the euro business should be done inside the euro area. It’s linked to the capacity of the central bank to provide liquidity and ensure oversight of its own currency,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.
“We’re not against some business being done in London, but the bulk of the business should be under our control. That’s the consequence of the choice by the UK to remain outside the euro area.”
But it hasn’t been a decision by governments to put that business in London. It’s been a decision by customers to do that business in London.
So what are you going to do about that then? After all, we’ve been here before. When the Americans had a with holding tax on bond interest: thus there grew up the Eurobond market out of their control. In London, of course.
Customers go where customers want to go….
12 responses so far ↓
1 JamesV // Dec 3, 2012 at 9:59 am
Are people still using euros then? I thought it was all scheduled to have collapsed by now.
2 bloke in france // Dec 3, 2012 at 10:10 am
He’s from the government and he’s here to help.
Noyer has form for being a bit nuts. He seems to think that tiresome and bureaucratic regulation plus a financial transactions tax are attractions which will pull all banks to Paris and Frankfurt.
3 bloke in france // Dec 3, 2012 at 10:13 am
Cue the old Frankfurt joke:
Why’s there no night life on Thursdays?
Because that’s when she visits her mother.
4 JamesV // Dec 3, 2012 at 10:28 am
Plenty of nightlife in Frankfurt.
The whorehouses are right next to the banking district. Planners thought it would make sense because in both lines of work you get paid to screw your clients. Badum-tish.
5 Serf // Dec 3, 2012 at 10:49 am
I think my children might be French.
Whenever you tell them something they don’t want to hear, they get angry and say it should be different. The universe should be changed to suit their needs.
6 Surreptitious Evil // Dec 3, 2012 at 11:18 am
If it isn’t based in Paris, how are the enarchs going to ensure that they are able to extract the maximum personal rent.
7 Offshore Observer // Dec 3, 2012 at 11:27 am
he is bascially a twat, because the one thing which is blindingly obvious is that none of that eurozone clearing business will end up in Paris or Frankfurt.
If they did come up with some way of legally forcing all that business inside the Eurozone would customers choose France or Ireland? Corporate tax rates of 33% of 12.5% (or nothing if you arrange your affairs correctly).
Why is it that France seems to think that damaging london will benefit France. It won’t it will benefit Ireland and Luxembourg.
8 MakajazMonkee // Dec 3, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I’ve never got why they’re so jealous of UK finance. Surely it would make sense to have a weak Euro and concentrate on manufacturing in that zone then have a strong Pound where the EUs finance and investment is done?
9 Tim Newman // Dec 3, 2012 at 1:21 pm
I like the line an American diplomat said about Bonn, back when it was the capital: about half the size of the Chicago cemetery, but twice as dead.
10 Dave // Dec 3, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Tim>
Bonn’s a lovely little town – little being the operative word. How it became a major capital ‘city’ is quite beyond me, but if you wanted to live somewhere civilised, elegant, peaceful, and relatively central in Europe, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Bonn. It is, of course, utterly dead, but it’s no distance from the nightlife of Koln and Dusseldorf, and you can be in Paris in a couple of hours by train.
11 JamesV // Dec 3, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Adenauer chose it cos he liked it. The intention was to not have it in a big city like Munich or Cologne as that would have made relocating to Berlin more difficult post-reunification harder to justify. Talk about foresight!
12 phil chuds // Dec 3, 2012 at 8:58 pm
By his analogy , we arent in the eurozone , so why should we subsidise wankly inefficient French farmers via CAP ?
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