G20

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In the interests of accommodating more colleagues, I now appeal for single, short supplementary questions and the Prime Minister’s characteristically pithy replies.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Why does the Prime Minister seem to think that the Greeks will be any more successful at staying in the euro than we were at trying to remain in the ERM?

[The Prime Minister]

One of the few advantages of the ERM was that you were able to get out of it, but one of the issues with the euro is that there is not a mechanism, properly and legally, for leaving it. If a country wanted to leave the euro, of course it could, but in the end this is an issue for the Greeks. They have to decide: do they accept the deal on the table that cuts their debt, and stay in the euro, or do they take a different path? The point I have been making is that they have to make up their mind for the rest of the world to move on.