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(Adds details, quotes) By Nicholas Winning Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES BRUSSELS (Dow Jones)--U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday that the U.K. wants a strong euro zone, but he had agreed concessions on budgetary surveillance and fiscal sanctions in discussions with European Union partners. "It is in our national interests that there is a strong and successful euro zone and we support efforts to make it more stable and deal with its difficulties," he said after taking part in his first European Council meeting. "But we also will ensure our red lines are protected. We are not and we will not be members of the euro," he said. EU leaders met in the Belgian capital to discuss changes to the bloc's rules on economic governance and other issues. Cameron said EU leaders had agreed that any sanctions for those that breach economic obligations would relate to members of the euro zone. They also agreed that any budgetary surveillance by EU authorities would take account of national budgetary procedures, he said. "I'm clear that that means Britain will always present its budget to parliament first," he said. Cameron said euro-zone efforts to strengthen its mechanisms didn't have to involve the U.K. government giving up any of its powers to EU authorities. Asked about the impact on U.K. jobs from government spending cuts, Cameron said the thing that would most undermine employment and the economic recovery would be not dealing with the deficit. "The truth is if we don't deal with our debts and our deficits we will never have the confidence we need to get the economy growing again and get a strong and sustainable recovery," he said. Cameron defended the new coalition government's decision to review and cancel some of the previous administration's spending plans. The U.K. Treasury outlined Thursday a series of projects worth some GBP11.5 billion that were promised by the previous Labour government that will now be axed or suspended in the coming years. "Our budget deficit isn't one of the best in Europe, it's one of the worst in Europe, so we're going to have to take difficult decisions," he said. Cameron said there was support for the U.K. approach on introducing a levy on financial institutions, and reiterated his opposition to a European-determined bank levy with a specific use of the funds raised. "This is something we would like international agreement on, but we will go ahead in any event with our bank levy," he said. The U.K. prime minister also said the U.K. would do all it could to help BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) with the clean-up of its massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. He stressed that the firm was an important company in both the U.K. and in the U.S. and he wanted to deal with the issue through sensible dialogue. "I want to see it [BP] as a strong stable company," he said. -By Nicholas Winning, Dow Jones Newswires, +44 207 842 9498; nick.winning@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 17, 2010 13:01 ET (17:01 GMT)