Corruption is one of the greatest enemies of progress in our time. It is the cancer at the heart of so many of the world's problems.

What you call austerity is what I might call efficiency.

It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU.

At a time when we're having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.

Now I know which came first - the chicken not the egg.

The EU must be able to act with the speed and flexibility of a network, not the cumbersome rigidity of a bloc.

Our participation in the single market, and our ability to help set its rules is the principal reason for our membership of the EU. So it is a vital interest for us to protect the integrity and fairness of the single market for all its members.