The views of the European Union are fully reflected in this text, particularly the key objective of the EU, namely vigorously to address the disarmament of Iraq and to do so within the framework of the UN Security Council.

There is a willingness on the European side to return to the negotiations. In November, there is another meeting in Vienna with all the heads of the countries that form part of the board of the International (Atomic) Energy Agency.

We don't want protectionism at the heart of the European Union.

We need to know more fully these views, and these things just kind of keep dribbling out and we need to have that full picture before we can vote as a committee at least, and certainly as a Senate, ... Fox News Sunday.

I interpret your question as applying more to financial stability in the euro area than to the euro itself. I do not think there has been a crisis. The euro is the single currency of 330 million people and enjoys a high degree of confidence among investors and savers because it has delivered price stability remarkably well over the last 11½ years. What we had was a situation in which a number of countries had not respected the Stability and Growth Pact. These countries have now engaged in policies of fiscal retrenchment that were overdue. They have to implement vigorously these policies which are decisive for the preservation and consolidation of financial stability in Europe.

I don't think this is the moment to do sanctions, and I do think the sanctions may contribute to the opposite that we want to obtain, which is defusing of the crisis,