Jacques Delors Quotes

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

Socialism had defeated her brand of ultra-liberal economics. ... [Margaret Thatcher believed that] the law of the market could be applied in the place of politics. She underestimated the dignity and grandeur of politics, which is an attempt to combine, an attempt to convince, an attempt to listen to others, to try to find a society which is not better but less bad than the one in which we live today.

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

Farmers have their dignity, just as others do. It is fine to make efforts to make them react to markets, but you cannot then tie their hands and take away their choices. That is putting them in a straitjacket. ... I have always felt that the Community should be able to say 'No' to its big brother [America].

The social and human balance of our societies depend on the farming world.

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 are really on the way towards a political entity with a common foreign policy on basic issues, then I consider that France's nuclear force should be available to serve that policy.

My objective is that before the end of the millennium Europe should have a true federation. The Commission should become a political executive which can define essential common interests...responsible before the European Parliament and before the nation-states represented how you will, by the European Council or by a second chamber of national parliaments.

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

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?

Europe will have 30 million unemployed by the end of the century if the continent's competitiveness and employment patterns are not rapidly changed. ... Europe's economic performance against America and Asia was declining and that the Community was faced with a choice between further decline and survival.

It is not sufficient to have a strong economy to influence events. You also have to political and military power. ... A community limited to a big market refusing to resume its responsibilities and ambitions in the world will not be peaceful, will not be able to assure its children that they will live in security. [If Europe is to have political personality it would have to have] a common foreign policy in certain domains and military co-operation that will lead, before 1995, to the creation of a multilateral rapid intervention force.

Socialism was not the socialization of losses and the privatization of profits.

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!