Osborne: We must maintain momentum

Osborne: We must maintain momentum

Osborne: We must maintain momentum

Osborne: We must maintain momentum

Chancellor George Osborne responds to the news that the eurozone leaders have established a new financial rescue package, telling the Today programme:

"We are in a much better place this morning than we were yesterday afternoon.

"The eurozone leaders have grasped the seriousness of the situation – the pressure has paid off, in that respect.

"Now we've got to maintain the pressure to put the package into place, to fill in the blank spaces that remain and get the eurozone into a much more stable position."

"I think the crucial thing this morning is to maintain the momentum to ensure that we don't see what happened back in July when they agreed another package but then it took months to put into place.

"We've got to maintain the momentum from last night and turn what was a good package into something that's actually got all the detail and is going to work in practice."