这篇文章语言不难，但是对背景知识有点要求。如果担心自己看不懂，可以先百度“硬脱欧”，帮助理解。
THERESA MAY’S speech on January 17th set Britain definitively on a path to a “hard” Brexit, in which it will leave not just the EU but the European single market. This was not what the City of London wanted to hear. The prime minister did at least pick out finance, along with carmaking, as an industry for which “elements of current single-market arrangements” might remain in place as part of a future trade deal. The City is holding out hope（抱有希望） that abespoke（定做的，尤指衣服、电脑程序、网站等） deal built on the existing legal concept of “equivalence” could still accord ita fair degree of（在很大程度上的）access to Europe.
1月17日英国首相特雷莎·梅发表演讲，明确英国将走“硬”退欧之路，即不仅脱离欧盟，还要退出欧洲单一市场。这可不是伦敦金融城愿意听到的消息。但她起码还特别提到了金融业和汽车制造业，称针对这两个行业，“目前单一市场协议中的某些元素”或许会被保留下来，作为未来贸易协定的一部分。伦敦金融城如今只希望，基于“同等性”这一现有法律概念制定的具针对性的贸易协定仍能在相当程度上助其参与欧洲市场。
“Passporting”, which allows financial firms in one EU member state automatically to serve customers in the other 27 without setting up local operations, was always going to be difficult after Brexit. Outside the single market, says Damian Carolan of Allen & Overy, a law firm, the “passport as we know it is dead.” Already, two big banks, HSBC and UBS, this week each confirmed plans to move 1,000 jobs from London.
在“单一牌照机制”(Passporting)下，任一欧盟成员国的金融公司都会自动获得资格为其余27国的客户提供服务，而无需在当地设立分支机构。但这一机制在英国退欧后必然将难以操作。英国安理国际律师事务所(Allen＆Overy)的达米安·卡罗兰(Damian Carolan)表示，在单一市场外，“我们所知道的那种单一牌照机制已不复存在。”1月下旬，汇丰和瑞银这两家大银行集团均已确认，各自计划从伦敦撤走1000个职位。
Financial companies all have tofirm up（使明确，比如：We can give you more detail as our plans firm up.等我们的计划明确时，我们可以给你更多细节。） their contingency plans. For the City, these focus on so-called “equivalence” provisions, allowing third-country financial firms access to the EU if their home country’s regulatory regime is deemed equivalent. Currently only some regulations, such as those governing clearing houses and securities trading, contain the provisions. Much of finance, notably bank lending and insurance, is not covered. And even where the provisions exist, applying them will, in effect, be a political decision.
所有金融公司都必须明确应急计划。伦敦金融城计划聚焦于所谓的“同等性”规定，即第三国只要被视为具备同等监管体系，其国内的金融企业便可进入欧盟市场。目前只有部分监管法规包含这类规定，例如针对清算所及证券变易的法规。金融业的大部分都不在这一范围内，特别是银行借贷及保险。实际上，即使在这类规定涵盖的领域，实施它们也还要依赖政治决定。
Optimists hope equivalence could not just form the basis of a feasible deal, but might even allow Britain to remove someonerous（繁重的，费力的） regulations. Jonathan Herbst of Norton Rose Fulbright, another law firm, notes that precedents exist for “variable geometry” in regulation. For instance, to gain access to American clients, some Britishclearing houses（票据交换所）already submit to partial American regulatory oversight. If they deal in euro-denominated trades, nothing seems to stop them from submitting to, say, direct oversight by the European Central Bank without leaving London.
乐观主义者希望，“同等性”不仅能成为可行协定的基础，甚至还可令英国取消一些繁琐的监管法规。英国诺顿罗氏律师事务所(Norton Rose Fulbright)的乔纳森赫布斯特(Jonathan Herbst)指出，在监管问题上，存在着“可变几何”（译注：一种灵活政策，即欧盟成员国可以对是否履行部分条约条款进行灵活谈判）的先例。例如，为获得美国客户，一些英国清算所已部分接受美国法规的监管。假如它们要处理欧元计价的交易，似乎没什么可阻止它们接受欧洲央行的直接监管而同时仍留在伦敦。
Such proposals may bestymied（vt.从中作梗，阻扰，妨碍） by cold political considerations. Equivalence determinations areat the full discretion of（at the discretion of… 任凭……处理） EU regulators, and the status can be withdrawnat short notice（在短时间内，一通知就）. Britain, as a current EU member, starts with identical rules. In a charged political environment, even a small future divergence could beconstrued（vt. 分析，解释，翻译） as moving away from equivalence. For all the creative solutions proposed by lawyers in London, Europeans are not minded to let Britainoff the hook（摆脱困境，脱身） by allowing it easily to “cherry-pick（择优挑选）” sectoralcarve-outs（（股权）分离）. Even before the Brexit referendum in June the ECB had sought to move euro clearing into the euro area.
这些方案也许会因冷酷的政治考量而受阻。是否具有同等性，这完全由欧盟监管机构裁定，而且“同等”地位转眼间就可能被撤销。英国作为现任欧盟成员，开始时规则是一样的。但在紧张的政治环境下，未来即便是出现很小的分歧，也可能被认作偏离“同等性”。即便伦敦的律师提出了种种有创意的解决方案，欧洲各方也还是无意就此放过英国，轻易就让它“东挑西拣”地决定就哪些行业作选择性剥离。早在去年6月英国脱欧公投前，欧洲央行就已试图将欧元结算转移到欧元区内。
Yet that is not a reason todismiss（vt.不予考虑） equivalence altogether. It would seem strange, as Mr Herbst points out, to admit Canadian banks into the EU on the back of the recent EU-Canada free-trade deal under better terms than British banks. (Indeed, many Canadian banks have their main European presence in London.)
然而，这并不说明“同等性”一无是处。正如赫布斯特指出的，如果在欧盟与加拿大最近签署的自由贸易协谈之后，让加拿大银行以更优于英国银行的条件进入欧盟市场，这会显得很奇怪。（事实上，许多加拿大银行在欧洲的主要运营机构均设在伦敦。）
Even on clearing, it is more likely that euro-denominated derivatives would move to New York rather than continental Europe. According to Mr Carolan, it would be tricky for the ECB to stop this unless it were to forbid European banks from using non-European clearing houses, which would deprive them of access to liquidity. It might be in the ECB’s interest, then, to agree on a bespoke arrangement on clearing. Other financial-market activities may proveharder nuts（难对付的人或事情） to crack—especially if, as seems possible, broader Brexit negotiations descend intoacrimony（辛辣，尖刻，争执，比如：The council's first meeting ended in acrimony.
地方议会的首次会议以争执结束。）.
即使在清算这一领域，欧元计价的衍生品也很可能转移到纽约而非欧洲大陆。据卡罗兰称，欧洲央行难以阻止这一变化，除非它禁止欧洲银行使用非欧洲的清算所，然而这会使欧洲银行资金流动性受限。那么，出于自身利益考虑，欧洲央行也许应就清算问题定制一套方案。金融市场的其他活动可能更为棘手，尤其是如果更广泛的退欧谈判陷入恶语相向的话一一这似乎颇有可能。
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