Brexit

Billionaire tycoon George Soros has warned the EU it is facing an ‘existential crisis’ and that Brexit talks could last five years. If, during the divorce negotiations, the EU manages to successfully reform itself and attract wider support from its citizens, the U.K. will want to keep its European membership, Soros told an audience in Brussels.

"The divorce will be a long process taking as long as five years. Five years are a very long time in politics, especially in revolutionary times like the present," Soros noted.

MiFID II (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II) aims to ensure financial stability in the European Union member states by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system. Just in few months it will be mandatory for every European Institution to comply with its regulations. Picking Alpha has talked to Karel Lannoo, CEO of CEPS, one of European leading think tanks on what markets can expect from MiFID II.

Little Luxembourg is luring firms on the lookout for a post-Brexit foothold in the European Union, from JPMorgan Chase & Co. to insurance giant American International Group Inc.

Bloomberg News reports that while many find the Grand Duchy a multilingual paradise, would-be expats are being warned not to expect the cosmopolitan lifestyle they currently enjoy in London and that they should prepare to spend long hours on clogged roads.

More Brits now believe Brexit is a bad idea than a good one for the first time since the shock referendum result, according to a new poll by YouGov. Asked "in hindsight, was Britain right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?", the YouGov poll in The Times newspaper found that 45% said wrong (up two), while 43% said right (down three), meanwhile, 12% said they didn’t know.

More Remainers than Brexiteers believed they’d made the right decision, with 89% of remain voters saying the result was the wrong decision, compared with 85% of leave voters who still backed exiting the EU.

Sampo Terho, a former member of the European Parliament and one of the top figures of the new populist and Eurosceptic party called Peerussuomalaiset (the True Finns), is pushing for Finland’s exit from the Eurozone, an outcome he considers inevitable.

Terho kicked off his party leadership campaign on Friday, telling a press conference that it was hard for Finland to keep its exports competitive because of its euro membership. "The only way to sustain our competitiveness is internal devaluation, which we carried out," he said, referring to a hard-fought labor reform that sparked anti-government demonstrations and strikes in 2015.

"The other option, if looking forward to the 2020s, 2030s and 2040s, is to return to our own currency … When we take this long look, that option seems possible, even likely," Terho said.

Credit Suisse, which set up a European hub in Dublin creating 100 jobs last year to service hedge fund clients, may apply for a full banking licence in Ireland as it prepares to move jobs out of London following the UK’s decision to quit the European Union, according to sources.

Credit Suisse received regulatory approval in December 2015 to operate as a direct branch of the group’s Zurich headquarters, becoming the first and only bank to date to avail of a change in Irish law in 2013 that allowed non-EU banks to set up a branch in Ireland.
Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Paris and Brussels are among the main locations competing with Dublin to lure financial services activity from London in the wake of the Brexit referendum last June. However, despite the triggering of Article 50 last month, it is understood that Credit Suisse has, as yet, no preferred location.

A survey of 2,500 Swiss companies by UBS bank found 65% of chief executives believed there would be further withdrawals from the embattled union, after Britain became the first nation in EU history to rescind its membership.

The poll underlined the importance that Swiss business leaders assign to relations with their biggest export market even as Britain’s vote to leave the bloc undermines some EU cohesion.

The survey released on Monday showed 65 percent of respondents want an institutional framework agreement with the EU, 27 percent favour keeping the existing bilateral accords, and 8 percent back scrapping the bilateral agreements.

Talks on the post-Brexit relationship between Switzerland and the UK are underway, according to the Swiss Federal Council. On March 31, Swiss Federal Councillor Johann N Schneider-Ammann met the UK’s Trade Secretary Liam Fox for a working meeting on Swiss-UK relations after the UK leaves the EU.

As part of the Federal Council’s "Mind the Gap" strategy, it will seek to reach a post-Brexit follow-up agreement with the UK as swiftly as possible. According to the Council, Fox said this was in the UK’s interests and that reaching such an arrangement with Switzerland is a priority. Schneider-Ammann and Fox agreed to meet on a regular basis.