mr president there is a temptation for the british to regard the stability mechanism as something that has nothing to do with us simply because we are outside the euro area
i think that would be a grave mistake
there is no doubt that there are many uk politicians here and at home who would like britain to join the euro
there was a pledge by all the parties that there would be a referendum before there was any attempt to join the euro but we all know how valuable referendum promises are in the uk
both the labour party and the conservative party pledged to have a vote on the lisbon treaty
the former wriggled out of it on the spurious ground that the constitutional treaty and the lisbon treaty were different the latter wriggled out of its obligation on the ground that the lisbon treaty had been ratified and therefore it was impossible to have a referendum
furthermore the present government has decided there will be no referendum on this treaty change
the proposed amendment to the treaty provides for expensive involvement in the stability mechanism of those countries that are not in the euro area
the whole stability mechanism of course is an admission of the innate flaw in the euro experiment
a currency value should reflect the relative value of a country's imports and exports the state of its economy
a single currency cannot reflect accurately the state of seventeen or eventually twenty-seven different economies
our priority must be to make sure this disastrous experiment is never extended to the uk
