Marek Belka Quotes

Germany will continue to play a central - perhaps even a more important - role in the European Union. I think that we will all miss the pragmatic approach of the British, however, particularly in those long nights of negotiation.

Americans tend to go for it all. In international politics you can’t have it all. You have to compromise.

There was not an ambassador in the world who was not my personal human rights representative.

Foreign policy begins with domestic policy.

Boutros-Ghali wasn't elected to anything in this country when last I checked.

I have always favored withdrawing recognition from Russia.

[Describing the United Nations:] The world cockpit of propaganda.

The Secretary General of the United Nations is more of a secretary than a general.

In the United Nations, the United States can almost always get its way…. The United States has the ability to make the United Nations work or not work---if it cares enough.

While most nations seemed to agree that something had to be done, every nation seemed to have a reason why some other nation should do it. So we sat, waiting for a promise to be kept, reduced to the role of accountants keeping track of how many were being killed.

It is the case that the Russians are misusing the veto in the United Nations, but you must recall that it was we who insisted upon the veto. Without the veto we could not gotten it through Congress.

… unless the United Nations stops becoming simply a debating society for anti-American rhetoric, I'm going to show them the door.

The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations - great or small - to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to be a part of the twentieth century.

Foreign policy is the most constraining form of policy-making

You don’t go for a vote in the Security Council unless you know that you have the votes to win.

When I was UN ambassador, the French were monitoring me.

The E.U. should want Turkey to be part of it.

When E.U. governments are able to agree on political and economic policies, they will remain a superpower to influence the Americans, the Russians, Indians and Chinese over the coming decades. Britain on its own would resume the decline which continued through most of the 20th century.

The U.S.-China relationship is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world.

Merkel is an amazing woman, very experienced in international politics.

Brexit is the best thing to happen for Russia, for America, for Germany, and for democracy.

Foreign policy is important.

It's not for Germany to decide for the rest of Europe.

Diplomatic eminences often natter on about preventive action, making the obvious point that it's better to cure festering ills before they metastasize into something much worse.

The political world is defined by relationships rather than transactions, and by numerous actors at home and abroad with independent power. Navigating such a world is difficult and precarious.