It's why we will set new fiscal rules to bind government to a disciplined approach.

It includes a specific date, January 1 2013, that the fiscal rules should come into force.

It is perfectly open to the other EU countries now to go ahead and form their own new fiscal rules.

But the answer, they argue, does not lie in tight fiscal rules.

And in any case, a fiscal rule based on government deficits or national debt would be arbitrary if it were applied to all countries.

The draft has imposed a deadline of January 1, 2013 for the new fiscal rules to be adopted.

If anything, the resilience of the euro shows that the debate over Europe's fiscal rules is less about economics than politics.

To join the union, these states must also meet the fiscal rules.

How to create viable fiscal rules for the euro would be left to the treaty negotiations.

Third, coherence: we have to ask ourselves whether our system of fiscal rules is complete.