Euro exclusion costs UK €16bn annually
Britain is missing out on £12bn (€16bn) in trade each year because of its decision not to join the euro, according to a report published by single currency campaigners Britain in Europe today.
And the figure is rising every year the UK stays out, the report warned.
With exactly a week to go until the British government announces whether it will call a referendum on the single currency, 10 former trade ministers wrote to the Cabinet to highlight the study’s findings and warn that saying “no” to the euro would harm Britain’s exporters for years to come.
In the letter, former Labour and Conservative ministers – including Leon Brittan, Michael Heseltine, Peter Mandelson and Peter Walker – warn that “Britain’s prosperity is at stake” when the Cabinet makes its judgment on the euro later this week.
Today’s study, written by economists Alejandro Micco, Ernesto Stein and Guillermo Ordoñez of the Inter-American Development Bank, found that the 12 eurozone countries enjoyed a boost in trade not only with one another but also with non-euro states in the first two years of European Monetary Union between 1999 and 2001.
“We estimate that, had the UK joined EMU in 1999, its total trade each year would have increased by around 7%,” they concluded.
“This increase in trade is statistically significant, economically important, and probably would have represented an improvement in welfare for the UK.”
