Mario Monti Quotes

Any people has a right to self-determination, and now in Europe the process of diluting national sovereignty in the framework of a united Europe is more accepted.

We have direct elections for the European Parliament. We have the [European] Commission that is independent from the member states. Of course we all belong to a country, but we are independent from our governments.

Democracy on a supranational level is simply impossible. In order to have democracy, there needs to be a nation.

Europe must act quickly where it's needed and must, once and for all, let member states handle what is their exclusive domain.

I am strictly against a European superstate.

As the Eurozone takes steps towards closer fiscal and economic integration, and as the E.U. continues to develop, we need to be absolutely clear when it is most appropriate to take decisions at the national or local level, closer to the people affected, and in other cases when it is best to take action at the E.U. or global level.

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.

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.

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.

By all means, let's have free trade and no trade barriers and a common market. But where did it all suddenly become about our own economic and political destiny being surrendered to Brussels with agendas that arguably have very little to do with the interests of the British people and British voters?

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

With the Germans, the sovereignty resided in the great assembly of the people.

I've always made it clear that I do not believe that global government is either necessary or feasible.

'Federalism', in the context of political and media usage in Britain, has come to mean the creation and imposition of a European superstate, one centralised in Brussels.

Everyone should respect the sovereignty of the EU countries.

Being a minority in a supergovernment [world government], the political, economic, and social control of our own country would ultimately pass from our own hands, and all the assurances of our fundamental institutions would be lost.

… where every man in a state has a vote, brutal laws are impossible.

The EU represents a highly developed system for mutual interference in each other’s domestic affairs right down to beer and sausages.

The EU aspired to transcend nation-states, but its fatal flaw has been its consistent failure to recognize the persistence of national differences and the importance of addressing threats on its frontiers. One consequence of this oversight has been the rise of political parties that aim to restore national autonomy, often by appealing to far-right, populist, and sometimes xenophobic sentiments

The EU suffers from … a structural democratic deficit. Of its seven institutions, just one—the European Parliament—is directly elected by the people, and it cannot initiate legislation.

We should not replicate the situation where one country is in a situation to hijack the rest of Europe because they organize a referendum.

In the 1990s, while the Maastricht debate was raging, I was a minister in the Major government. Every single piece of legislation we proposed had to be scrutinised for compatibility with E.U. law.

The European Union is robbing us of our national identities, our nation states.

We don't want a European super state.