Britain sues the ECB

As the EU debt drama continues unspooling like a perversely watchable soap opera (the FT’s Neil Hume describes it as ‘eurozone crisis porn’), an intriguing sub-plot has emerged: Britain is suing the European Central Bank. The Treasury is unhappy with an ECB move to limit the kind of euro-denominated products that can pass through UK clearing houses, suspecting it’s a bid to shift financial activity from London to Paris/Berlin. So it’s taking legal action, the first of its kind by an EU member state.

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This is not the first UK-EU disagreement that has surfaced in recent months, underlining the tensions between Britain and the Continent as financial centres across Europe fight over a (shrinking) business pie. The UK is also deeply opposed to the rather sinister-sounding ‘Tobin tax’ – a broad levy on financial transactions – that is being pushed by Germany and France.