Single currency in Eurozone is not optional extra

4:21pm Wednesday 18th April 2001

Talking about the Euro, the subject of a recent debate at Middlesex University ('Redwood rejects the Euro in debate', April 5), it isn't true to say, as did Christopher Huhne MEP speaking in favour of joining the single currency, that by doing so we would 'save, on average, about £30 per month on mortgages'.

In fact, any such saving at the time of joining would show that the interest rates set in the UK and in the Eurozone weren't yet as closely aligned as, for the good of both sides, they should have been showing we should still have waited a bit longer.

My own view, briefly, is that a single currency is an integral part of a single market, not an optional extra. This is as true of the Euro and the European single market (of which Britain is, of course, a founder member) as it is of the pound's role inside the UK.

Walter Grey

Arden Road, Finchley