G8 and NATO Summits

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord is asking me to look into a crystal ball to give us the results of the Greek elections and to try to guess what I think is almost unguessable at the moment as to the likely reaction of the markets of the rest of the eurozone countries and the impact not just within the EU but on the rest of the world and particularly the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister has laid out—and I suspect that the noble Lord, beneath his occasional expostulations, agrees with this—that it is in Britain’s best interests for the eurozone to sort out its problems. The eurozone is at a crossroads. It either has to make up or it is looking at a potential break-up. Europe should have a committed, stable and successful eurozone with an effective firewall; it should be well capitalised with well regulated banks and there should be a system of fiscal burden sharing and supportive monetary policy across the eurozone. If we do not get that, we are in uncharted territory. I will not be the first Minister from the Dispatch Box to advise either the Greeks or the eurozone what they should do next.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, even if we get what my noble friend suggests, which is some kind of common fiscal and government operation across the eurozone, is it not evident now that Greece is not the malady but simply a symptom of the malady and that, if we persist in this belief that you can tie economies that have different competitiveness together, we will see the problem re-emerge? Should we not therefore be encouraging people to acknowledge in the G8 and elsewhere that the euro has been a disastrous experiment, which is impoverishing people throughout Europe? We must look to a return to currencies in Europe and acknowledge the damage that has been done rather than encouraging further integration, which will simply lead to more grief, more poverty and more discontent throughout the European Union.