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George Osborne speech on European Union; Osborne speech SOTFar from being unthinkingly anti-European, we are using the European court to enforce European principles of non-discrimination and adherence to European lawWe have a good argument in all these cases. The ECJ's advocate general, and the Council Legal Services have on separate occasions both agreed with key UK arguments. We await final judgement.And lastly, on the whole issue of 'ins' versus 'outs', we inherited a situation where the previous government accepted that the UK and other non-euro Member States would be liable for contributing to the costs of Eurozone bailouts.That was completely unacceptable.So another principle this government has established, thanks to the very hard negotiating of the Prime Minister, is that the UK and other non-euro members will not pay for European bailouts alongside the new European Stability Mechanism.We've also established that those member states outside the Banking Union will not pay for bailing out banks in that Banking Union – as part of the new Single Resolution Mechanism.After all, one of the reasons we didn’t join the euro is because we didn't want to take on this kind of fiscal responsibility for other member states.I have been clear since the start of the process that Eurozone integration was necessary to make the euro work better, but that it would throw up these issues and that in return we would expect to see the rights of non-euro members protected. That has been the consistent position the Prime Minister and I have maintained for three years now.But it is not the case that the UK is always the member state arguing for less activity or blocking things. We've led the way on financial services regulation and ringfencing our banks – and we have the most stringent capital and liquidity rules in Europe. Nor are we "sitting on the sidelines."We have been active in fighting our corner, building alliances and winn...