Vladimir Putin Quotes

Europe is my home, Europe is my continent. Europe is where we live. The European Union is a political bureaucratic organization that took away our identity and our national sovereignty. So, I would get rid of the European Union and be a nation-state again.

If governments let themselves be fully bound by the decisions of their parliaments without protecting their own freedom to act, a breakup of Europe would be a more probable outcome than deeper integration.

Before, Europe was about treaties, laws and our sovereign right to govern ourselves. Now, it's about everyday lives.

I know this isn't a widespread view in the Anglo Saxon world, but I believe that much of the reconciliation between more centralized governance and the scope for democracy - democratic control - will be resolved through an even stronger role of the European Parliament.

I have been supporting the European Union, but we are still a work in progress. We have to become more of a United States of Europe. We should talk about electing a president of the E.U., rather than having one selected from the heads of government.

… every nation, when able and agreed, has a right to set up over themselves any form of government which to them may appear most conducive to their common welfare.

Let the world be grafted onto our republics, but the trunk must be our own.

I am strictly against a European superstate.

The European Union cannot be compared to the United States. America is a nation, but Europe is not. Europe is a continent of many different nations with their own identities, traditions and languages. Robbing them of their national democracies does not create a European democracy - it destroys democracy in Europe.

Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe.

The British people have the right to decide - have the right to decide whether or not they want to be part of the E.U. And I shouldn't interfere in this.

We have more and more rules coming out of Europe telling us what to do, and I think people are getting a bit fed up with it. This was supposed to be a common market. I don't remember them ever saying we would be governed by Brussels and become a satellite of Europe.

Among peoples who are geographically grouped together like the peoples of Europe there must exist a sort of federal link. It is this link which I wish to endeavour to establish.

I am a committed European; a united Europe is Romania's future.

We need to remind our core supporters that we have not forgotten their concern with the way our democracy is being replaced by European bureaucracy in so many areas.

Europe is a collection of free countries.

The great European dream was to diminish militant nationalism. We would all be happy Europeans together. But we are going to see the old monster of militant nationalism being awoken when people realise how little control their politicians have.

I believe that nationalism is a very strong force, but there are other forces operating; there are tendencies pushing towards a larger picture, especially in Europe, I think; but I still think nationalism is real.

For me, everything is still possible and I am as determined as ever. I believe first that the project of a people does not die. It is the project of freedom for a people, it is a project of sovereignty. And since the nation exists, it has the right to its own state. I will work to advance it in that direction.

I do not consider the Lisbon Treaty to be a good thing for Europe, for the freedom of Europe, or for the Czech Republic.

There can be no perfect Europe in which Ireland is denied even the least of its national rights.

Argentina wouldn't exist if not for self-determination, and this can't be valid for some but not for others.

People of all countries have the right to choose their own social system and road to development in the light of their national conditions and characteristics.

The euro currency both presupposes and promotes a fiction - that 'Europe' has somehow become, against the wishes of most Europeans, a political rather than a merely geographic expression.

Peace in Europe can only come through union in one economic system. The United States of Europe are overdue.