European Council

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right. It is because we have been clear about the things that need to change that the European Commission is already looking at the sorts of changes that could be made. This is an organisation that responds not simply to pressure, but to political realities, so we have to make sure that the political reality after the next election is someone walking into the Berlaymont building or the European Council building and demanding change, rather than someone wandering in and just saying, “Relax—there’s nothing you need to do. We don’t have to have a referendum. We don’t need a renegotiation. One day we’ll join the single currency.” All the pressure would be off and, yes, some in Brussels would breathe a sigh of relief, because it would be business as usual with Labour and probably the Scottish National party too.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

I endorse the Prime Minister’s welcome to our excellent new chief Clerk. I also welcome the fact, Mr Speaker, that you are proceeding speedily to the appointment of the post that will carry out the chief executive duties, the director general. That is very important.

On Greece, may I suggest to the Prime Minister that simply repeating the same dose of austerity on the Greek people and their Government will not achieve the objective any more than the last dose did? National debt went up in Greece as a result of the austerity programme. Of course, the Greek Government have to reform to collect their taxes and to get rid of corruption, and the Government have volunteered to do that, but going down the same austerity road is not going to revive the Greek economy or enable it to repay its debts. Those must be rescheduled and the reforms around that must ensure that Greece is capable of repaying its debts, not being strangled with austerity.

[The Prime Minister]

I do not entirely disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. The problem is, though, that the people who have lent the money to Greece want their money back, and they believe that Greece should carry out a series of reforms before they give it any more money. He or I can take a different view and argue as I would, although he would not, that Greece should never have joined the eurozone in the first place. That is not the right hon. Gentleman’s view because he is a fanatic about the eurozone. None the less, as we have not lent money to Greece, we are not in that position. If he had been at the European Council he would have heard, whether from the Germans, the Dutch and the Scandinavian countries, or from the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Irish, who have all been through these painful processes, that there is very little appetite to cut Greece a lot of slack.