European officials are offering two inducements to lure Britain into making a swift declaration of intent to join the euro, which will greet the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, when he arrives in Strasbourg today to open the European parliament's debate on the new central bank.
The goal is to ensure that Britain would be able to join the single currency zone when the notes and coins of the new euro go into circulation in January 2002.
The message was sent to Britain by EU commissioners, who yesterday unanimously assured Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown that they would waive the two-year waiting period inside the exchange rate mechanism, as required by the Maastricht treaty, if Britain would announce that it was ready to join.
Mr Ashdown was also assured that "a way would be found" to bring Britain into the Euro-X committee, the economic policy-making body for Euroland, as the 11-nation zone using the single currency is now known.
Tony Blair fought a long, losing battle at the Luxembourg summit last year to fend off Britain's exclusion from the Euro-X group, which brings together the 11 finance ministers of Euroland. They alone will discuss the new currency's external relations, which include setting of exchange rates against other currencies and relations with US and Japanese authorities who run the dollar and the yen.
It was not clear whether the offers made by the EU Commissioners would be backed by the national governments. But Mr Ashdown called yesterday for a British declaration of intent to join, with a date set for a referendum and possible British membership as early as 2000.
"Events will push the Government down this path faster that they are prepared to admit, and I firmly believe they will be driven to hold the referendum before the next general election," he said. "They are being driven this way already, through pressures on the pound, on interest rates and shortly by the consequent loss of jobs".