A Euro fantasy reverses itself

I was amused to hear the President of the European Commission tell the European Parliament today that it had been a fantasy to imagine that you could have a single currency and single market without a single economic policy.

Funnily enough, a few years ago when there was a serious debate in Britain about whether we should scrap the pound, it was those of us who wanted to keep the pound who made exactly that point. Those who were arguing that you could join the euro without having a common european policy would be found on the side who were arguing that Britain should join.

It’s because it would have meant too big a loss of economic independence that we wanted to stay out, and are glad that we did.

Comments

Chris Whiteside said…
Sorry Tim, I appear to have accidentally deleted a comment here.

There is no reason for us to be smug about the chaos in the Euro, which will harm Britain - but it would have harmed us even more if we had been foolish enough to scrap the pound.
12:47 pm
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