Following the Prime Minister's statement on the European Council meeting Anne Main raises concerns of misuse of the EU institutions, such as the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, by the 25 countries who have signed up to the new intergovernmental agreement on tighter fiscal rules.

Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con): In December, the Minister for Europe said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) that

“we understand why those countries want to use the institutions, but it is new territory and raises important issues that we will need to explore with our colleagues in those other European countries.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 718.]

Further, today my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said there are legal implications as a result of the discussions he has had. Does he share my concern that by invoking the institutions we may well end up in a Jarndyce v. Jarndyce-type legal squabble with the European Court of Justice that will not go in our favour?

The Prime Minister: That is not my concern; instead, my concern is that although there are uses of the EU institutions that are already sanctioned by existing treaties and to which we could not possibly object, this agreement between the 25 countries goes further than that and raises legal concerns. So we are right to raise them and use the leverage to try to keep this new organisation on the straight and narrow path of fiscal union rather than moving over into the single currency. I do not really fear what my hon. Friend says, because of course people can take cases about what has been signed to the European Court, but that is not going to drag Britain into a treaty that we are not part of. That is another advantage of not having signed the treaty.

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