David Cameron pledges to fight for the City in European Union battle over bank regulations
DAVID Cameron yesterday promised to fight for the City’s interests when Eurozone leaders debate the format of a forthcoming banking union.
Last week’s European Council meeting saw an agreement to form a central body that aims to speed up economic integration and will exert control over 6,000 individual banks.
But the exact format of the organisation has yet to be decided and the Prime Minister has pledged that the interests of the City will be the “focus” of his negotiating strategy.
“I am very conscious of the fact, sitting round that table, that I am responsible for 40 per cent of the European Union’s financial services industry,” he told MPs yesterday.
Cameron also promised to fight any attempt to raise the EU budget by more than the rate of inflation: “I do not believe that German voters want that any more than British voters, and that is why our governments have led the argument in Europe for fiscal restraint.
“We are a trading nation, we need not only those markets to be open but also a say on how those markets operate,” he added.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister will today host a roundtable meeting with some of the UK’s largest companies in an attempt to promote “supply chain credit”. The policy aims to boost smaller firms by allowing them to access cheap borrowing if they can provide proof that they have received an order from a larger firm.