JOSE MANUEL BARROSO

Norway or Switzerland are two marvelous countries, I very much admire, the most advanced countries in the world in fact with great qualities of life.

The E.U. is founded on the Treaties which apply only to the Member States who have agreed and ratified them.

There is no stability without solidarity and no solidarity without stability.

Governments are not always right.

My mother wanted me to be a professor, because I have several people in my family who are professors at university.

I'll put it frankly - Britain has more influence in China than Norway or Switzerland, with all respect for the other countries.

Let us not forget that the European Community started as a project for peace after the terrible Second World War. And today people take for granted the freedom to travel, to study, to work abroad. And the citizens of one country have almost exactly the same rights as another country.

Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

I have full confidence in the IMF. It is a very strong international institution.

Even when governments take the right steps to reform, these can be negatively impacted by events outside their control.

There's a tendency in many politicians to become inward-looking, more protectionist, more nationalistic and more defensive, in the bad sense of the word.

I very often compare relations between states to relations with people. Sometimes we are nicer to those we don't know well, who are not our friends, than we are to our friends, because with our friends we don't need to be nice all the time.

What people call serendipity sometimes is just having your eyes open.

You see in times of crisis that extremist forces, populist forces, have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings. Feelings of fear.

Smart, sustainable, inclusive growth is the key to job-creation and the future prosperity of Europe.

The new narrative for Europe should be about the need to have a responsible organisation, the need to be able to defend our interests and promote our values, like human rights.

I don't know why my son was born conservative.

Financial transaction tax raises problems of competition.

I believe that Europe without Britain at the heart will be less reform-driven, less open, less international Europe.

I say to my friends, 'Don't just listen to the vuvuzelas; look at who scores the goals.' And this is the important thing.

I think diversity can also be a resource, an asset, especially in a world that is becoming globalized, to deal with difference, to deal with variety, to deal with complexity.

Internal protectionism in Europe would be deadly, really a disaster for European economies.

In the age of globalisation, pooled sovereignty means more power, not less.

The dynamic of globalisation in financial and economic terms, but also in geopolitical terms, confronts Europeans with a stark choice: live together, share a common destiny and count in the world; or face the prospect of disunity and decline.

A new state, if it wants to join the European Union, has to apply to become a member of the European Union like any state.