Jacques Delors Quotes

Federalism is a guideline, not a pornographic word, you can speak it out loud...We have been focusing too much on a country that has said no, no, no!

Cars are free to circulate but still there are speed limits, therefore I do not see why, at the international level, we should not study ways to limit monetary movements. Bankers cannot act at will. ... Why should we not draw up some rules of the game?

I have a passion for reform, for the progress of man and society. I cannot stand the feeling of being useless.

He thinks I am the man of the past but I am still here. He is the man of the past.

It is impossible to build Europe on only deregulation...1992 is much more than the creation of an internal market abolishing barriers to the free movement of goods services and investment...The internal market should be designed to benefit each and every citizen of the Community. It is therefore necessary to improve workers' living and working conditions, and to provide better protection for their health and safety at work...Europe needs you.

[Greek voices] must not only be heard claiming their due but also contributing to the European Union.

I take what is good where I find it. I am for what the Anglo-Saxons call a 'policy mix' in the context of a mixed economy. ... I would simply say...without wishing to offend anyone, that you appreciate the distance which separates British Leyland from Renault. We want to have more Renaults. It is the difference between an industrial policy which succeeds and one which does not.

According to [<nowiki/>John Major], the issue now is to build a greater Europe around a single market and some areas of co-operation, notably in the environment. Everything else is flexible. I call that Europe à la carte. This is not my thesis. Mine is: the fathers of the Treaty of Rome wanted not just peace among us, but also that Europe should be able to continue existing in a world in which they sensed profound change in the wind, without being able to describe it. In consequence, if we want our nations to keep their universal capacity together, they must unite politically, without nostalgia for the old order.

[I criticise those] countries that used currency devaluation as a lever to win jobs. I would refer you to one member state of the Community without name it. Those who devalue in an extreme way will find health at the expense of the rest of the Community. It's like three people shipwrecked—one person floats for the sake of the other two going under.

Politicians who attack the dream of a federal Europe are racist bigots intent on undermining the Continent's freedom and peace.

The Americans should stop insulting us, I'm not going to be an accomplice to the depopulation of the land. It's not up to the Americans to tell us how to organise our farm policy and the balance of our society. Their attitude is to treat the EC as if it had the plague and then encourage the rest of the world to join in.

My feeling is that we will not be able to take all the decisions which will be necessary from now until 1995 unless there is the embryo of a European government in one form or another.

What I see is European construction drifting towards a free-trade zone, that is to say an English-style Europe, which I reject. If we do nothing, this will lead in 15 years to a break-up. I reject a Europe that would be just a market, a free-trade zone without a soul, without a conscience, without political will, without a social dimension.

If we do not succeed with political union...then the historic decline of Europe which began with the First World War will resume.

Europe is a commercial giant and an economic power of the first rank, but it is a political dwarf. Political cooperation in the Community will grow. The question is whether the supply services will follow.