BRITAIN: Downing Street last night sought to defuse the row that erupted over Europe Minister Mr Peter Hain's claim that a referendum on the single currency could be held as early as next spring.
The Tories denounced Mr Hain as a "crazed" self-publicist who was seeking to usurp more senior ministers in order to "steamroller" the country into signing up to the single currency.
Downing Street however rejected claims that he had tried to accelerate the timetable for joining with his suggestion that the assessment of Chancellor Gordon Brown's five economic tests could be completed before the government's self-imposed deadline of June 2003.
Mr Hain said, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, that Mr Brown's verdict on the five economic tests could come as early as this autumn, paving the way for a referendum in spring 2003. However, a Downing Street spokesman said: "It is just a statement of fact that he doesn't know when the Chancellor will bring forward his assessment." The spokesman added: "I don't see any conflict between what he said in the interview and our very well-known policy on the euro. "What he said was prefaced very clearly with a reiteration of the Chancellor's commitment to complete the assessment of the five economic tests by June 2003."
Downing Street also played down Mr Hain's description of opponents of the single currency as "enemies" of Europe. The spokesman insisted he was simply referring to those "anti-Europeans" who were using opposition to the euro as "camouflage" for their real agenda to take Britain out of the EU altogether.
Mr Straw refused to be drawn on Mr Hain's comments. "We are all together on Europe," was all he would say to reporters' questions. With ministers anxious to avoid any fresh controversy after the row over spin doctor Ms Jo Moore, the treasury gave only a muted response to Mr Hain's comments.
"The government's overall position on the single currency is clear and was set out by the Chancellor in 1997," a treasury spokesman added.