Britse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken: strenge begrotingsregels niet voor VK (en) - Hoofdinhoud
The UK's foreign secretary, William Hague, has said London should not be subject to greater budgetary sanctions inside the EU.
Speaking in front of national MPs on Thursday (3 June), Mr Hague said the current drive to toughen up the bloc's budgetary rules - known as the Stability and Growth Pact - may be appropriate for countries sharing the euro, but not those outside the single currency.
"They should never apply to those countries which retain their own currencies, and this country will retain its own currency," he said.
The eurozone's ongoing sovereign debt crisis has sent shock waves through Europe's political establishment, leading to multiple calls for the EU's budgetary rules limiting deficit and debt levels to be more strictly applied in the future.
A European Commission ideas paper last month said national budgets should be subject to EU peer review before being passed on to national parliaments for approval, a suggestion that attracted immediate criticism from several capitals.
"While we recognise the importance of maintaining a dialogue on deficit reduction across the euro zone and the wider EU, we are absolutely firm in our view that our national budget must always be presented first to our national parliament," Mr Hague told national parliamentarians.
The commission also floated the idea of withholding EU funding for member states that repeatedly breach the pact's rules, while Germany has suggested that runaway spenders should have their voting rights in the council curtailed.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has also said EU treaty changes will be necessary to bring about meaningful changes to the bloc's rules, a move that the UK and others oppose.
Meeting in Brussels last month, EU finance ministers did however reach a broad agreement that both financial and non-financial sanctions were needed, although the exact details have yet to be worked out.
Swedish support for euro falls
Separately, Swedish support for joining the euro currency appears to have fallen dramatically over the past year.
A recent poll conducted by the Novus Opinion institute revealed that 61 percent of those questioned opposed membership of the eurozone, with only 25 percent in favour and 14 percent having no opinion.
A similar questionnaire carried out in May 2009 showed a much larger 49 percent of respondents to be in favour of euro adoption, with 44 percent opposed and nine percent expressing no opinion.
The sharp turnaround suggests Swedish citizens see their krona as a shield against the current economic turmoil.
The northern EU state has recovered better than most, with growth returning in the second quarter of 2009 and the economy expanding a stronger than expected 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010.