Downing Street Says

» Friday, September 10, 2004

Euro

Asked if the Chancellor had been suggesting in his FT article today that the under performance of the Eurozone meant that British membership of the single currency was ‘off the radar’ for the foreseeable future, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said no. It was important to see the Chancellor’s remarks in the right context. Both he, the Prime Minister and other Government Ministers had long made clear the case for reform in Europe. That was, in part, why we were so pleased that the new European Commission and Commission President had committed themselves to the Lisbon agenda since reform was very important for the future of Europe. To read anything more into the Chancellor’s words would be a mistake. Asked to explain how the European Commission could be committed to reform when its budget was due to rise by 30% – something which the Chancellor had called ‘unacceptable’, the PMOS said that he had been referring to the incoming Commission and the attitude of Commission President-elect Barroso in terms of pushing the reform agenda forward. We had made it clear in the past that we did not believe that the proposed budget increase was right. In our view, Europe had to live within the appropriate budget constraints. However, that had to be achieved at the same time as pushing forward the reform agenda, which would involve changes in areas such as CAP.

Asked if the Prime Minister accepted the Chancellor’s case in which he appeared to be suggesting that the campaign for a referendum on the Constitution might be undermined unless Europe got its act together economically, the PMOS said that he had no intention of providing a running commentary on the referendum at this stage. However, there was no doubting the Government’s overall commitment to reform, as anyone who had listened to any speech or comments on economic reform and the future of Europe made by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and other members of the Government.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

September 2004

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

« Aug

Oct »

» Friday, September 10, 2004

Euro

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries