Nick Clegg Quotes

The euro zone must strike for a better governance structure, and there is no alternative to that. Euro zone countries must either develop an exit mechanism for troubled members, or it should embrace a closer political union: an effective governance structure that is capable of enforcing rules.

Giving Northern Europe a veto over Southern Europe's budgets will not hold a monetary union together. The euro zone will continue to need the weaker countries to stomach decades of high unemployment to grind down wages.

I would like to see Greece as a case study, an opportunity for Europe to strengthen its coordination of fiscal policy.

Greece has given Europe the opportunity to fix a defect in the euro zone, that is the fact that we did not have a fiscal union. Now steps have been taken to begin that process. And there is more solidarity from nation to nation, and that is a good thing. That has been Greece's gift to Europe.

You've got some very powerful countries: Poland, the United Kingdom, Sweden and others who have a genuine desire to see the euro zone straighten itself out. It's good for all of us, whether you're in the euro zone or not, to make sure that it doesn't lead to a fracturing.

You need basically some accountability rules, which means democratic checks and balances at the euro zone level, and definitely, you have to increase convergence in terms of taxes, in terms of social affairs and so on.

My main argument against staying in the E.U. has been the poor economic record of the E.U. as a whole and the eurozone in particular. The performance has got worse the more the E.U. has developed joint policies and central controls.

One of the arguments I make for the failure of the euro is that, at the time it was being constructed, there was a 'neo-liberal' ideology which said that all we need to do to make this thing work is to get deficits low, keep inflation low, and take down barriers, and then everything would be fine.

Is Europe going to be breaking? I don't think so. I think the euro will stay. I think at the end of the day Europeans will find the solutions in order to hold Europe together.

Britain is not in the single currency, and we're not going to be. But we all need the eurozone to have the right governance and structures to secure a successful currency for the long term.

If we were the problem, it would be very convenient - kick Greece out, everything's fine. What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the euro zone? We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice.

We need to put in place an economic system of governance for the euro-zone.

There's no more place in the euro zone for well-meaning laxness when dealing with deficits and failings. If the demands on Greece aren't taken seriously, we'll get stuck in quicksand. In the worst case, this would make it acceptable for one tranche to not be paid out. It is in the Greeks own interest not to test that.

Germany is the biggest economy of Europe and we need Germany on board for the economic reforms of Europe, including, of course, the deepening of the internal market, resisting protectionism, and supporting further economic policy coordination.

Countries themselves need to do everything possible to remain in the euro zone.

Two decisions have damaged the stability both of the euro and of Europe: the premature admission of Greece to the euro area and the breach and subsequent weakening of the stability and growth pact.

In the end, the politics of the euro zone weren't strong enough to create a fully integrated fiscal union with a common banking system, etc.

European officials thought that austerity was part of what they called their 'convergence policies,' of trying to bring countries together. Instead, it actually made things worse. There's more inequality within countries and more disparity across countries.

I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created.

The current Eurozone is obviously dysfunctional. And serious people within Germany and elsewhere know this to be the case and know things cannot function this way forever.

We are near, very near, to an end to the eurozone crisis... The worst - in the sense of the fear of the eurozone breaking up - is over. But the best isn't there yet.

Eurobonds are absolutely wrong. In order to bring about common interest rates, you need similar competitiveness levels, similar budget situations. You don't get them by collectivizing debts.

Good economic policy requires not so much the bravado to implement drastic change as the strength and wisdom to make reasonable trade-offs over the many years it takes to transform a country's standard of living.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it.

I am personally convinced - and I think the Greek people share this belief in a fundamental way - that we can achieve fiscal consolidation more effectively and we can restore competitiveness in a more fundamental and permanent way within the euro area than outside.