Eurozone Crisis

Chris Leslie Excerpts
Thursday 27th October 2011

(12 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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I can confirm that we have lost our veto on financial assistance. That was one of the issues with the so-called EFSM—the European financial stabilisation mechanism—which was the EU27 bail-out fund, which we joined a couple of days before this Government were created. Getting us out of it—[Interruption.] The former Chancellor’s memoirs are very clear about this.

George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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The former Chancellor wrote them! What I would say to my hon. Friend is that we did not have the power to veto disbursements from the EFSM, so we had to negotiate our way out of it. That is precisely what the British Prime Minister has done.