You could not script it like this... and still be believed..

[Itisnoteasybeingdifferent]

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has shown the first signs of backing away from his hardline, no compromise approach after admitting he wants a deal with Britain that will guarantee the other 27 member states will continue to have easy access to the City.

From the Guardian today..

Yes, good news

Have you not seen Barnier's rebuttal? He has corrected the Guardian over its article "EU negotiator wants 'special' deal over access to City post-Brexit" , tweeting

When asked on equivalence I said: EU would need special vigilance on financial stability risk, not special deal to access the City @guardian

Methinks wishful thinking on the part of the Guardian

I think this is just a typical translation error.

It's actually a good argument for why negotiations need to be conducted in the negotiators' mother tongues, with interpreters, and not only in English. There will be lots of technical discussion and nuance and this can be difficult for people operating in a foreign language, even one they speak reasonably well.

The other factor is that the British press (except the FT) has a terrible record on reporting European stories, perhaps because they do not employ enough bilingual people and do not do enough fact checking. The Guardian is among the "least worst" in this regard, but even so it has blatantly dropped the baton here.

You may be right but I'm not sure how vigilance got confused with a deal...

I think it would be fairly easy for "equivalence" and "vigilence" to be confused, assuming that either speaker or listener or both were not operating in their native language. (Was Barnier speaking in French or English?) The two words are quite close in sound, plus there is always the element of listeners hearing what they want to hear.

I doubt this misunderstanding was deliberate, if that's what you're implying?

'Vigilance' and 'accord' less so.

No I don't think it was deliberate but quite sloppy possibly coupled with wishful thinking.