End the uncertainty and rule-out the euro for all-time

Embargoed until midnight 8th June 2003

The euro is a political project designed to bind European nations together in a European state. In the midst of the current debate about economics, this central fact should not be forgotten.

The economic case against the euro is obvious for all to see. Across the channel the stagnant members of Euroland have levels of unemployment that would be seen as ruinous in this country. How could a decision to join them be represented as sensible economic policy?

The key fact though is that Economic and Monetary Union (the euro) and political union are two sides of the same coin. Replacing the Pound with the euro would mean that unaccountable EU bureaucrats control the key levers of economic policy. The UK would not be able to set its own interest rates. It would have to obey the dictates of the Growth and Stability Pact, now universally acknowledged as a stupidity. There will be political pressure to comply with tax and spend objectives set by the European Union. Britain will have to abandon its competitive tax policy.

The Bruges Group calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to stop using the nation’s independence as a weapon in his battles with the Prime Minister. The British people do not want to be subsumed in a single European state. That, not thousands of pages of Treasury briefing papers, is the real bar to British membership of the euro.

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– NOTES TO EDITORS –
Bruges Group representatives are available for interviews and quotes on the implications of the euro, the five economic tests and for comment on the current EU debate.