EU Council

Richard Drax Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am keen to accommodate more colleagues, but very large numbers of them are standing and I will not be able to accommodate them all. To maximise the number of participants, brevity will be of the essence.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

The Prime Minister urges close integration as one solution to the problem in Europe. Closer integration, even among a smaller number of eurozone countries, is already leading to economic chaos and big civil disorder. Surely he should be advising everyone to go back to their currencies, except, perhaps, for the powerful countries in Europe, and then rebuild the economy, rebuild jobs and rebuild wealth.

[The Prime Minister]

We cannot make choices on behalf of other European countries. The eurozone countries say that they want a single currency and that they want that single currency to work. If that is the case, I believe that it follows that they will have to integrate more deeply. It remains to be seen whether all of them will be able to do that. What we see in Europe, week after week, are the difficulties of taking those steps. None the less, we cannot instruct those countries not to do something. That is their choice. We have made our choice, which is to stay out of the eurozone. As I said, we are not going to be involved in that integration and we will not be paying those bills. I hope that my hon. Friend can be reassured on that basis.