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John Stevens
Former Conservative MEP and adviser to Taube Hodson Stonex Partners LLP
John Stevens is 55. He was educated at Winchester and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a degree in law. After a time working in France, Germany and Italy for Banque Indosuez, Bayerische Hypotheken Bank and Reuters, he joined Morgan Grenfell in 1979 and rose to become a Director and head of their European Currency and Government Bond Trading Operation, which, in the mid 80s, was the largest of its kind in London. He was seconded for a period to New York and Tokyo.
In 1989 he was elected Conservative MEP for the Thames Valley and became Vice Chairman of the European Parliament’s Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee. He conducted all the legislation for the creation of the Euro through the European Parliament from 1989 to 1999. He was the European Parliament’s representative on the EBRD and on the European Monetary Institute which became the European Central Bank.
In 1999, with a number of others, he set up the Pro Euro Conservative Party, with the intention of encouraging Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine to reform the Conservative Party under their leadership and restore it to its pro European traditions.
From 1989 to 1997 he was an adviser to J Rothschild Investment Management. In 1997 he helped set up Taube Hodson Stonex Partners and since then has been an adviser there. His other interests include agriculture and infrastructure development, notably railways.
He contributes regularly to a number of publications on European politics and economics. He has sponsored a research programme at Chatham House on the implications for Europe and the West of the rise of India and China. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Federal Trust for Education and Research. His principal present activity is as a researcher and writer on early Christian history and architecture.
John contested the Buckingham constituency in the 2010 General Election as an independent candidate, against Commons Speaker John Bercow, beating UKIP’s Nigel Farage into third place with 21.4% of the vote.
Past Speaking Events
06 February 2012
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Lunch Meeting
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London
The City and Europe
The Prime minister, David Cameron, has stated recently that the City of London is under “constant attack” from EU directives and is “a key national interest that we need to defend”. Stuart Fraser, from the City of London Corporation has added “a deal in Europe, in the Eurozone, could marginalize the City”, and the Mayor, Boris Johnson, has suggested that a Tobin tax, favoured by the European Commission and a number of Eurozone states would reduce London’s competitiveness. These comments raise big questions: Are the City and the EU fundamentally incompatible? Could the City really thrive outside the EU? Would closer integration with the EU stifle London’s competitiveness and reduce it to a regional financial centre? Could closer integration help the City to become even stronger and more international?