LONDON/BRUSSELS - European companies would be the losers if the European Union tried to impose barriers on London financiers, as such firms would be unable to access some of the deepest markets in the world, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said on Thursday.

EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan told EU lawmakers that the negotiations had not made much progress to date

“There are few places in the world where you have such a deep and broad capital market,” Gove told the Brexit committee of the upper house of the British parliament.

“If it were the case that the EU chose deliberately to raise the barrier themselves on access for our fianncial services to their market, the losers would be investors in equities in EU companies who would not be able to get the very best price for any transaction that they wanted.

“It would be another example of potential self harm on the EU’s part,” Gove said.

In Brussels, the EU trade chief said the same day that the EU is willing to move in negotiations on future EU-UK relations, but Britain must make a bigger effort to do the same in talks next week, 

EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan told EU lawmakers that the negotiations had not made much progress to date.

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“Perhaps the United Kingdom has come to the conclusion that there’s not going to be a deal. I hope not because we want a deal, but speed is of the essence because time is short,” he told the trade committee of the European Parliament, before the next round of negotiations next week.

Britain told the EU on Wednesday it needed to break a fundamental impasse to clinch a Brexit trade deal by the end of the year and said an agreement on fisheries might not be ready by July.

Also on Thursday, EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn said the European Commission wants higher guarantees for the next long-term EU budget to back Commission borrowing for economic recovery and as a safeguard against a “hard Brexit”.

Britain left the European Union on Jan 31, but has various financial obligations to the 27-nation bloc that will last many years.

EU law now says that the maximum national contribution to the EU budget by governments can be 1.2 percent of gross national income (GNI), even though actual payments are lower.

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The EU executive wants to raise that ceiling to be sure to have enough cash to repay the 750 billion euros the Commission is set to borrow on the market to stimulate economic recovery across the bloc after the coronavirus pandemic.

The United Kingdom left the EU on Jan 31, but the main terms of its membership remain in place during a transition period until the end of this year, allowing time to negotiate a new free-trade deal with the bloc.