Mandelson calls for Euro backing

News in pictures
News in pictures
On Facebook
From the blogs

Disclosure: We’d never even been to a club when we made our first single

For most of us, reaching eighteen years of age opens up a new world for exploration, spontaneity and...

Sepp Blatter: Penalty shoot-outs must remain, they’re football’s great leveller

As England supporters, we should scorn at any such deciding factor within football. On so many occas...

Why do some men consider the street as a female meat market?

Pronouncements on sexual inequality in the UK are normally met with an eye roll by my generation. As...

Political corruption reflects the widening chasm between the political class and the electorate

The corruption and hypocrisy which has come to characterise politics and politicians, and in particu...

Former EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson today delivered a robust defence of the euro and urged European leaders to make the case for further fiscal integration.

The former business secretary warned that a collapse in the single currency would not only cause "colossal" economic damage across the world but also put Europe's global credibility and influence at risk.



Speaking to a business audience in Singapore, he argued that the euro has given the EU a decade of high growth and low inflation and still offers "huge potential economic benefits" for Europe's future.



But he said that action was needed from EU leaders to shore up the single currency's credibility not only with the markets but also with the taxpayers who are being asked to make sacrifices to support it.



Warning that a failure of nerve risks "disastrous consequences for Europe", Lord Mandelson urged the euro's political supporters to "stand up, win the argument, act decisively and lead - and to do so without further delay".



"The question of European economic integration will also be the question of European global credibility and influence in the 21st century," he said.



"Not just our currency but our position in the world is at stake, our ability to command the attention of investors as well as our capacity to deploy our 'soft' continental power.



"If we see one domino fall, others will follow. That's why we have to fight back. Not against the markets - that's fool's talk - but against a decline in our own self-belief, a failure of nerve which, if we are not careful, will engulf Europe with disastrous consequences not just for our economy but for everyone else's too."



Defending the euro's record, Lord Mandelson said: "We have got so used so quickly this year to talking about the single currency as a source of weakness for the EU that it is easy to forget its strengths.



"Ten years of high growth and low inflation. The reduced transaction costs, the reduced exchange rate volatility, the price transparency, the deep integrated capital market. The benefits of reserve currency status.



"To say that the euro is a political project is not to say that it does not have huge potential economic benefits, although eurosceptics often imply that this is the case.



"And this is true for EU states such as Britain that remained outside the currency bloc, which is why the UK Chancellor is right to urge a political solution that preserves the euro, even if it puts a Conservative Chancellor in the somewhat counter-intuitive position of arguing for closer union in Europe."



The failure to spell out the benefits of currency union has contributed to an erosion of public support for the fiscal measures now needed to save it, he warned.



"It is simply not possible to save the eurozone without explaining and making the political case for further integration," said Lord Mandelson.



"At the moment no one is putting the political case for deeper economic union in anything other than the most evasive and oblique terms.



"I hear leaders insisting they will do whatever it takes to preserve the euro from the scepticism of the bond markets. But I don't hear why. And we are fooling ourselves if we don't see that that omission is part of the problem.



"Until Europe's political leaders re-make a believable political case for 'doing whatever it takes', they will not succeed in restoring their credibility, whether in the markets or amongst the public, and it is credibility more than credit which is currently in such short supply."

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Career Services

Day In a Page

Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?

Ridley Scott: The most macho man in movies?

His cinematic CV is unparalleled. Yet the Alien director is still obsessed with beating his rivals.
Being Gary Lineker: The clean-cut anchorman is this summer's Mr Sport

Being Gary Lineker

The clean-cut anchorman is this summer's Mr Sport...
Gallic gourmets are putting French cuisine back on the culinary map

Gallic gourmets put France back on culinary map

Overdone, out of touch and old-fashioned: French cuisine has never been at a lower ebb...
So Moorish: Mark Hix offers his own take on classic Moroccan dishes

So Moorish: Mark Hix's Moroccan dishes

Why not create a north African-inspired feast to share with your friends?
Sin and the single mother: The history of lone parenthood

Sin and the single mother

Maureen Paton explores the history of lone parenthood.
The outsider: Margaret Howell is British fashion's queen of minimalism

The outsider: Margaret Howell

The designer tells Susannah Frankel why she has never felt part of the fashion industry.
The 50 Best luggage

The 50 Best luggage

From chic cases to compact baggage, pack it all in this summer
For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos in Greece

For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos

On a secluded peninsula in north-east Greece lies an enclave that's way off the tourist map, especially for women...
48 Hours In: Faro

48 Hours In: Faro

More than just the gateway to the Algarve, this city has much to tempt you off the beach.
Here, the coast is always clear: Celebrating sixty years of Pembrokeshire's National Park

60 years of Pembrokeshire's National Park

Mick Webb reveals a land of puffins, tanks and Hollywood blockbusters.
Free Range: Meet the designers of tomorrow

Free Range

Meet the artists of the future
Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?

Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?

As scientists at Rothamsted's GM trials plead with activists not to sabotage their work, Michael McCarthy visits the battle field
Monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV

Monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV

Deep in Cameroon's rainforests, poachers are killing primates for food. Evan Williams reports from Yokadouma on a practice that could create a pandemic
Catcalls, whistles, groping: just another day for a young woman

Catcalls, whistles, groping: just another day for a young woman

Government urged to take abuse more seriously as London study shows 41 per cent are harassed
Jailing of Maori separatists stirs colonial-era resentment

Jailing of Maori separatists stirs colonial-era resentment

Militant Tuhoe tribe members defiant amid claims race relations had been set back 100 years