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Lord Harrison, your committee today has released a report into the future of economic governance
of the EU. Could you tell me why you did the enquiry?
Well today Portugal is now experiencing the difficulties that many have experienced in
the EU since 2008’s financial crisis, so we have launched the enquiry to examine the
proposals from the commission to see whether they will work in the future.
And what did you find? Well the ideas, many of them are good, but
what is required is political will, by all the EU countries but especially those in the
euro area, to live up to what they agreed to, this didn’t happen last time with the
stability and growth pact, it must happen this time.
And why does matter to the UK? It matters to the UK not only because we have
investments in places like Portugal, or indeed Spain which is experiencing some difficulties,
and with Ireland of course which we’ve already helped with a loan there, it means that we
would lose those, but much more importantly is the Single Market, its where our british
firms thrive and survive, by selling their goods and services to the rest of Europe,
if that begins to fracture because the euro begins to fracture then it means there are
difficulties here, loss of jobs in the UK, loss of the very entrepreneurship that we
need now to get out of the current difficulties we’re experiencing as an economy. So our
solutions are that people have got to put their shoulder to the wheel to build a better
Europe, not only for the 500 million people in the Single Market area, but also for the
UK to be prosperous as a result of a successful euro, a successful Single European Market