UNITED KINGDOM:SOME EURO zone countries will struggle to honour the promises to keep deficits in line made in Monday's agreement among 25 EU states, British prime minister David Cameron has warned.
Mr Cameron yesterday highlighted the scale of the promises made by the 25 EU leaders to keep their national finances within agreed boundaries.
“When you actually read the agreement that these countries have come to – I completely understand the need for fiscal discipline within the euro zone, clearly you can’t have countries building up excessive deficits year after year and one can understand the concern of Germany and the other northern countries about this – but when you look at the text of the treaty it is really concerning that some countries will struggle to meet it.”
Mr Cameron also defended his decision to allow the 25 states to use European institutions to operate the agreement, including the European Commission and European Court of Justice.
However, Labour leader Ed Miliband contrasted Mr Cameron’s actions on Monday with his veto at the December EU summit. “The whole house now knows the truth that with this prime minister a veto is not for life, it’s just for Christmas,” he said.
Mr Cameron endured a difficult time at the despatch box, with many of his own MPs accepting the merit of charges levelled by the Labour leader, who claimed that Mr Cameron had exercised “a phantom veto” during the December talks.
“He says it’s not really a treaty, but it talks like a European treaty, it looks like a European treaty, it is a European treaty,” Mr Miliband said to Labour cheers, adding: “And for Britain he has secured absolutely no protections at all.”
Mr Cameron did not face a rebellion in the Commons from his Eurosceptic backbenchers over his decision to allow the 25 states to use European institutions, but it is clear that they are biding their time as they have warned that the UK must not contribute more money to the International Monetary Fund to save Greece.
Despite Conservative MPs seeking a guarantee that the UK will not contribute more to the IMF, Mr Cameron steadfastly refused to comply with them, saying both he and British chancellor George Osborne had already laid down the conditions under which the UK would be willing to contribute more.
The UK has already contributed £25 billion (€30 billion) to the IMF in actual or committed cash, but it could raise this to £40 billion without having to go back to the House of Commons for further approval by MPs.
The prime minister insisted the UK’s interests were protected yesterday, adding that he would order legal action to be taken “if our national interests are threatened by misuse of the institutions” by the EU-25 agreement.
“The new agreement sets out roles for the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. While some of those roles are already permitted through existing treaties, there are legal questions about what is planned,” Mr Cameron said.
“It is in Britain’s interest that the euro zone sorts out its problems and it is also in our interest that the new agreement outside the European Union is restricted to issues of fiscal union and does not encroach on the single market.”
He said the agreement was “absolutely explicit and clear that it can’t encroach on the competences of the EU and they must not take measures that in any way undermine the EU single market”.
The treaty is one that is “outside the EU”, he said. “It doesn’t have the force of EU law for us, nor does it have the force of EU law for the EU institutions, nor does it have the force of EU law for the countries who sign it.”