Varadkar: EU deal will not solve debt crisis
The European summit deal alone will not be enough to resolve the deepening debt crisis, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar has claimed.
Minister Varadkar also warned events would likely overtake leaders in the coming weeks.
Demanding the European Commission seize more control, Mr Varadkar said a push, particularly by France, towards an “intergovernental union” was not in Ireland’s interests.
“I suspect events will overtake us over the next few weeks,” he told RTÉ.
“Fiscal co-ordination is a good idea, and it’s good that’s happening, but it’s not going to be enough to solve the problem that we have.”
Minister Varadkar said the European Commission had been “downgraded” since the Lisbon Treaty.
He also called for the European Central Bank to take on a different role in the crisis.
Separately, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said he would be surprised if Britain was not involved in talks about greater fiscal union across Europe in the coming months.
Mr Gilmore said Britain’s isolation was not in the interests of Ireland, and dicussions would take place between London and Dublin on the pact.
The deal struck in Brussels last Friday, involving 26 of the European Union’s 27 countries, is to be debated in the Dáil next week.
But Mr Gilmore said it was too early at this stage to determine if it would require a referendum.
The Tánaiste said conclusive legal opinion on whether or not to put the deal to the electorate was needed after the full details of the agreement are pored over in the coming weeks. “If it requires a referendum then we will have a referendum,” he said.
But he added that the deal was an international agreement, which he stressed was different to an ammendement to European treaties, which in the past have necessiated referendums.
Minister Varadkar said the UK’s decision to veto the EU deal was disappointing.
