"EU leaders have taken some positive steps towards reinforcing discipline such as including fiscal discipline into 'a' treaty and insisting that a 'balanced budget' rule be incorporated into the constitutions of member states."

"However, we doubt this alone will be sufficient to tackle the crisis we face today. There is no mention of a banking licence for enhanced ECB intervention,nor of a eurobond market or a collective redemption fund to bring down excessive debt."

This is still not the economic and fiscal union we need."

New Treaty only acceptable under strict conditions

"The new treaty, to be elaborated by March, is only acceptable if the community method and democratic control are fully respected. The new treaty arrangements would have to be at least a precise copy of the existing one so as to make it possible to incorporate it into the existing one."

"I don't exclude that we may have recourse to the Court of Justice if these guarantees are not explicitly foreseen in the new intergovernmental treaty. The best way to avoid this is to fully involve the Parliament in the drafting process."

"Finally, I regret the British decision to prevent an agreement of all 27 Member States which has forced effectively the other countries to forge ahead on their own."