The EU proposals to strict new caps on bankers’ bonuses put thousands of British jobs at risk.
The European Union’s (EU) proposals to strict new caps on bankers’ bonuses will put thousands of British jobs at risk, a senior minister has warned.
Business and Enterprise minister Michael Fallon, who is in close ties with British Chancellor George Osborne, said the government will fight for more flexibility on the EU bank bonus cap at Brussels’ meetings this week as the move could threaten thousands of jobs in the country.
“The threat is not to the well paid banker, the threat is to the hundreds of thousands of ordinary banking jobs in Britain if these big international banks are forced to relocate,” Fallon said.
“We are not giving up on this, we are still fighting for more flexibility and we’ll be doing that at the Ecofin meeting this week.”
Earlier last week, London Mayor Boris Johnson warned that Brussels’s bank bonus cap will push banking business away from the City of London and towards Zurich, Singapore and New York.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also raised concerns over the EU proposals, saying that the new rules must allow international banks to keep “competing and succeeding while being located in the UK”.
Britain’s Trades Union Congress (TUC), however, accused the government of taking the bankers’ side ahead of ordinary people who have been made to pay the price of bankers’ folly.
MOS/
