Lords EU Committee quiz Treasury officials
26 October 2010
The House of Lords EU Sub-Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs and International Trade heard evidence from senior Treasury officials on the future of economic governance in the EU.
The Committee heard from Peter Curwen, The Treasury’s Director of Europe and Conrad Smewing, Head of Fiscal Policy, as part of their ongoing inquiry into how the EU can take steps to ensure the health and stability of European economies following the credit crunch and the Greek debt crisis.
The Committee’s inquiry will feed into the current work being undertaken across the EU to improve economic governance. This includes the proposals put forward by Herman Von Rompuy’s Task Force last week which proposed to increase sanctions on Member States failing to meet commitments to fiscal restraint.
The Treasury officials gave their views on what went wrong in the Eurozone, whether the Government supports the approach recommended by Mr Von Rompuy’s Economic Task Force, whether there should be tighter EU controls on levels of public debt in Member States, and how the UK will interact with new tighter fiscal controls in the EU given its position outside the European Monetary Union.
- Audio: Listen to evidence session (Tuesday 26 October 2010)
- Uncorrected transcript: Mr Peter Curwen, Director of Europe, and Mr Conrad Smewing, Head of Fiscal Policy Team (Tuesday 26 October 2010)