Bill Cash asked the Foreign Secretary: My right hon. Friend is a great historian as well as Foreign Secretary. Does he accept that the eurozone crisis is not only a eurozone crisis but a European Union crisis, and political, economic and democratic in nature? Given that it affects the daily lives of 450 million people in Europe, has the time not come for a convention, not of the kind held last time, but one based on the principles of democracy and the defence of the British nation?
Mr Hague: I will go so far with my hon. Friend, as usual, but not all the way, as usual. I absolutely agree that the crisis is having a major effect not only on those in the eurozone but more broadly, and that it is having major political as well as economic ramifications. As for drawing together, in whatever form, reflections on the future of Europe arising from the crisis, however, it would be better to do that when one can discern how the crisis will end and progress and develop over the coming months.
