Britain would probably be even better off if it joined Europe's single currency, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Saturday.
Speaking at a conference in Berlin, Trichet said he did not agree with a questioner who suggested Britain had been successful because it had stayed outside the euro, noting Ireland - one of 12 countries which share the euro - was now richer than its neighbour in terms of gross domestic product per capita.
"I really trust - it is my sentiment, I don't ask the British citizens here to approve what I will say - but I trust that if the UK was in the euro it would even be better off. That's my sentiment," Trichet told the event organised by the BMW Quandt Foundation.
Britain opted out of joining economic and monetary union when the then 12-nation European Union negotiated the Maastricht treaty in 1991. Former British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, who was in government at the time, said if anything the pressures to join had since lessened. "The pressure from manufacturers to join has gone. Ditto for the financial centre," Hurd told the conference, in response to Trichet's remarks.
"There is a political price and, the greater the extent that finance ministers, central bank governors take decisions on the basis of the eurozone... that price will grow. But it is not an excessive price at the moment," Hurd said. "The pressures that existed in 1991...have become very much weaker, which is why even our Prime Minister (Tony Blair), who is clearly personally enthusiastic, never speaks now about this matter and is certainly not pressing it."
Hurd said he did not see pressure to join increasing in Britain again "in the foreseeable future".