Nick Clegg Quotes

It's been President Clinton's dream that we'll have finally a fully integrated Europe.

[Europe needs] the efficiency and … simplicity of a single state.

I see us very much at the heart of Europe. We are founding members of the single market; we are founding members of the euro.

Thanks to the euro, our pockets will soon hold solid evidence of a European identity. We need to build on this, and make the euro more than a currency and Europe more than a territory... In the next six months, we will talk a lot about political union, and rightly so. Political union is inseparable from economic union. Stronger growth and Euorpean integration are related issues. In both areas we will take concrete steps forward.

I am, however, deeply saddened by this [Brexit] vote by the British electorate. But I respect their decision. What is crucial now is that we focus very precisely on what Europe can do for people: stimulate investment, create jobs and together ensure the safety and security of our citizens.

It is nonsense that people shopping online in some parts of Europe are unable to access the best deals because of where they live. I want completing the single market to be our driving mission.

Decisions can only be reached in Europe if France and Germany agree.

The integration of Europe was very much led by a Germany that was always willing to pay a little bit extra to reach a compromise that everybody accepted, because Germany was so eager to get European support for reunification. That was called the "farsighted vision," which created the European Union.

The euro will raise the citizens' awareness of their belonging to one Europe more than any other integration step to date.

It's easy to forget how central the French people are in everything we mean when we say Europe.

It will not be any European statesman who will unite Europe: Europe will be united by the Chinese.

The bureaucratic method of building an integrated Europe has exhausted its potential.

I'm of the opinion that Angela Merkel is a responsible politician, a politician who has a sense of responsibility for Europe and not only for Germany or for the - her political party.

The next Euro-elections will be a step towards a United States of Europe

There is a proposal to divide the currency zone into a north and a south euro. There is also the idea of setting up a core monetary union in the middle of Europe. I disapprove of these debates. Instead, we should devote all of our efforts to supplementing the monetary union with a political union.

I think that the Brexit negotiations have to be a big thing that determines the democratic fight-back and galvanizes democratic Europe again against this rising tide of nationalism.

We agree: Brussels can't regulate everything. I'm driven by something else: There are forces in Europe that want to generally give national policy priority over a common European approach. We have to prevent this.

Our task is nothing less than the creation of a new constitutional order for a new united Europe.

If cooperation among governments were the superior concept for progress in Europe, I'd be onboard immediately. But the problem is that cooperation isn't working.

But it is the best thing that we have for bringing the countries of Europe around the same table and for forging compromises so that people here can live in peace, freedom and prosperity. In a world which is growing closer together all the time, we can only survive and influence the rules if we join forces. We will miss the presence of the United Kingdom at this table.

Without a tighter union, Europe will disintegrate

Europe is... a monument to the vanity of individuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure.

I completely agree with Helmut Kohl. I am not an advocate of the "United States of Europe," nor am I an integration fanatic.

My main concern is the political dimension of European integration. This is one of the most important issues of all, as far as I'm concerned. It has to do with our past, with our sensitivity, perhaps even our hypersensitivity in this regard.

(A unified) 'Europe' is the result of plans. It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt.