§ Mr. SpearingTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals he has received for a regulation of the European Community in pursuit of budgetary discipline and monetary stability to secure the obligations of members or institutions to support the currency of any one of its members, being a member of the exchange rate mechanism but not that of a common currency; and under what article of the treaty of European Union such regulation could be proposed. [7693]
§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke[holding answer 6 December 1996]: The Florence European Council agreed that a new exchange rate mechanism will be established for stage 3 of economic and monetary union to link the euro with currencies of member states remaining outside the single currency. The new mechanism, like the existing one, will be an intergovernmental nature and outside the community, and EC treaty, framework. Membership will be voluntary.
Proposals for how the mechanism may operate were set out by the European Monetary Institute in its paper of 7 October entitled "Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy Co-operation between the euro area and other EU countries", a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House. There are no draft legal texts at this stage.