Defender of Britain’s financial interests in Brussels resigns

Major’s Conservative government, Lord Hill had been a proponent of reforms that would be a boon to the City.

In a symbolic move, the European Commission has temporarily granted Lord Hill’s responsibilities for financial stability and financial services to Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commission vice-president for the euro, sidelining EU members outside the single currency area.

Under the EU treaties, a new British Commissioner must be appointed until the UK fully leaves in two years’ time. A source said that their duties would be humiliatingly trivial.

Lord Hill said yesterday: “I came to Brussels as someone who had campaigned against Britain joining the euro and who was sceptical about Europe.

“I will leave it certain that, despite its frustrations, our membership was good for our place in the world and good for our economy. But what is done cannot be undone and now we have to get on with making our new relationship with Europe work as well as possible.”

Lord Hill pledged to continue working with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, to enthey’re Lord Hill, who was appointed by David Cameron in 2014 to be Britain’s European Commissioner, was in charge of financial services and stability sure an orderly transition. Mr Juncker said: “I wanted the British commissioner to be in charge of financial services, as a sign of my confidence in the UK’s membership of the EU.

“To my great regret, this situation is now changing. I have tried to convince Lord Hill to stay on as commissioner. I consider him to be a true European and not just the British commissioner. However, I understand his decision and I respect it.”

People close to Lord Hill said that he had in the past month informed Mr Juncker of his intention to resign if the UK did vote to leave.

A friend of Lord Hill said: “With financial services being such an important part of the future renegotiation package, it’s not possible to see how you could have a British commissioner in that post.”

In an interview with in the week before the EU vote, Lord Hill said the idea that Britain would get a good deal after a vote to leave the EU was “in the realm of complete fantasy”. He said: “One has to face up to the fact that the other members of the EU have been slagged off fairly royally, and the people who you would be negotiating with.”

Since he became Britain’s commissioner in 2014, Lord Hill has been a guardian of British financial interests in Brussels. He said that it made “no sense” to leave the EU at a time when the UK could help to drive the market reform agenda forward.

Sean Tuffy, head of regulatory intelligence at Brown Brothers Harriman, said that the European financial services industry had lost one of its strongest advocates.

Mr Tuffy said Lord Hill was “responsible for the change in attitude at the European Commission, making it much less adversarial, and more concerned with promoting growth”.

That was epitomised by the capital markets union project which Lord Hill had led, Mr Tuffy said, and is now at risk of being hijacked by less profinance Europeans.

Raoul Ruparel, a director of Open Europe, a think tank, said that many in the EU, including France, wanted the Capital Markets Union reforms to be less favourable to the City, a threat “that the UK and Lord Hill had fought off ”.