Mayor of London Boris Johnson has called on European leaders to accept some countries may have to leave the single currency.
Speaking on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show, Johnson urged leaders to abandon “hysterical” efforts to save the euro and said he expected the currency to be adjusted in the next 12 months.
Johnson said: “I would be amazed if we were all sitting here next year and the euro had not undergone some sort of change.”
He continued: “I think it highly likely that there will be a realignment in the sense that some countries will fall out… and we all know who the likely candidates are. But there is such phobia about this and such a lot of political ego has been invested in the success of the euro project that people are failing to see that might be the best way forward.
“If we continually go on with these hysterical attempts to bubble gum the whole thing together we are just going to consign those periphery economies particularly to low growth and we are never going to get confidence back in the eurozone.”
Johnson’s call for a change of attitude among eurozone leaders comes after prime minister David Cameron’s hardline stance over the EU treaty appeared to win public support.
Cameron wielded the veto at the Brussels summit, antagonising Liberal Democrat members of the coalition government, but providing his own Conservative party with a boost in the polls. The Tories have opened up at 40 per cent to 34 per cent lead over Labour, according to the ICM/Sunday Telegraph survey, while the Liberal Democrats are on 14 per cent.
The survey also found 58 per cent of people want a referendum on the EU, but Johnson played down the calls for a vote. He said it would only be required if there was a “treaty change that substantially affects the UK”.
Johnson said: “There is no immediate reason as far as I can see to get embroiled in an in/out referendum.”
A vote on Britain in the EU will only be held if powers were to be handed from London to Brussels, the government has ruled.
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