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European Council

My Lords, the noble Lord says that the eurozone is in a mess and that it will not succeed. That is not the view of the British Government. We believe that the countries of the eurozone have got themselves together. It is true that they face a crisis, but the issue that needs to be resolved is how to solve that crisis, and to do so as quickly as possible, since, as every week goes by, it becomes more expensive to be able to do so. We think that sensible steps were taken forward over the last few days, but only the markets will decide whether the euro is to succeed. We believe that it is in British interests that the euro should succeed, that there should be a greater fiscal union and that many of the things that were proposed late on Thursday night are the right things for the EU to do. Secondly, as to question of whether this was a negotiating tactic by the Prime Minister, it most certainly was not. Of course we understand that at this level these summits end up in negotiations. Indeed, we put forward a very fair proposal that we wholly expected the other European countries to agree to. They did not do so, and that is why the Prime Minister could not agree.