MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Euro rescue deal limited to 17-EU countries and with a March deadline
PM Cameron opted out of the deal questioning financial services changes Attempts to rescue the Euro will focus on a deal among the 17 nations that use the single currency, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said early Friday.
Speaking after all-night talks at an EU summit in Brussels, he said the Euro zone bloc set a March deadline to approve an inter-governmental treaty.
France and Germany had wanted all 27 members to back treaty changes on tough budget rules to solve the debt crisis. But Britain sought concessions that Berlin and Paris did not accept.
Speaking at a news conference after nearly 10 hours of talks, Mr Sarkozy said he would have preferred a new treaty among all the EU members.
But he said that British Prime Minister David Cameron had proposed a protocol to be written in the deal allowing London to opt-out on proposed change on financial services.
“We could not accept this,” Mr Sarkozy said.
Cameron had earlier repeatedly warned he would veto anything which harms British interests.
“I will be doing my best for Britain and I hope that if we get a good deal that will be good for Britain”, Cameron promised before leaving for the summit.
”But if I can't get what I want I will have no hesitation in vetoing a treaty at 27 (EU members) because I am not going to go to Brussels and not stand up for our country,“ he said at a meeting broadcast by Sky News.
Sarkozy added that Hungary also decided to remain outside the proposed treaty, while the Czech Republic and Sweden wanted first to consult with their parliaments.
”All the others have wished to join the inter-governmental treaty,“ the French leader said.
Earlier in the day US President Barack Obama said he was ”very concerned“ about the Euro zone crisis and believed the European Union had the resources to solve it if leaders could find the political will.
”Europe is wealthy enough that there's no reason why they can't solve this problem,“ Obama told reporters at the White House.
”If they muster the political will, they have the capacity to settle markets down, make sure that they are acting responsibly and that governments like Italy are able to finance their debt.”
Obama said he thought German Chancellor Angela Merkel had made progress with other European leaders on the issue.
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Read all commentsCameron shows yet again the so called uk is nothing but the City of Londo..Alec Salmond has another serious tool in his hands now
Dec 09th, 2011 - 08:01 am 0O'Gara you are either blind or stupid. The EuroZone Crises does not need nor did it ever need non EuroZone countries, signing to changes in the treaty at all. All it needed was those countries that are part of the EURO, after all its the EURO currency thats in crisis, not the currency's of the states outside of the EuroZone.
Dec 09th, 2011 - 10:27 am 0All Germany and France were trying to do is get more contorl over all EU Countires, tax, banking and financial sectors and centralise it in the brussel's. Basically trying to get control of other controls through the back door and create a united Europe. Both France and Germany failed to do this in war, such as Nepolean and ww 2 so are now trying to do it together via diplomacy.
Now why should we the british people pay extra taxes to brusssels, have them take control of and tax our financial sector and give them more say over our laws and banking? The EuroZone Crisis is not our problem and it would be far cheaper for us if the Euro Collasped then to enter this new treaty. Sure our economy would shrink up to 5% if the euro did collaspes, but the cost of that is far less then the next 25 years under france and germanys proposed changes.
Not only that, if cameron had agreed he would have had to hold a referrendum and i can tell you now us brits would have vote no by at least 85% and well have similarly voted to leave the EU altogether. France and Germany were simply being greedy when they wanted all 27 EU states to sign the new treaty, just so they could rob the coffers of our banks and finanical sector as well as control our taxes. IF brazil tried to do the same with argentinas financial sector and taxes, youd be the first to tell them up yours, now wouldn't you.
#1 Ogaga
Dec 09th, 2011 - 10:45 am 0It's hypocritical for a pretend Irishman to berate the UK when we were stupid enough to loan money to support the Irish economy. As far as I am aware no other country outside the Eurozone did so (to be clear for you that's countries in the EU but not using Euros for their currency).
At the time there were plenty of us who thought baling Eire out was not our responsibily - your cackeyed grasp of finance and economics with regard to Argentina and what you think about the UK in general proves we were correct.
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