Still a chance of having financial services in UK's trade deal with EU

Luxembourg

THE UK shouldn't give up hope of getting financial services included in a final trade agreement with the European Union, with a Bloomberg survey of the EU's 27 remaining governments revealing divergences of opinion.

While nearly all of the EU's capitals consider maintaining unity of the bloc their main priority, a few take a softer line on financial services than the one expressed by Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator. Mr Barnier has said that there can be no easy access to the bloc's single market for UK financial companies because this has never been included in previous EU trade deals and would be tantamount to allowing the UK to "cherry pick" the best aspects of EU membership.