Jean-Pierre Raffarin Quotes

Europe was born with Jean Monnet but then was progressively transformed.

The Netherlands believes in a vigorous Europe with a commission that is independent and robust.

For Europe to play a part in the world on the scale of its wealth and its population and its capacities, Europe has to be united in some way, and Europe is not united.

We must build a kind of United States of Europe.

The UK is not going to leave the European Union. Of course not. We are inextricably wound up with Europe. In terms of culture, history and geography, we are a European nation.

As Tony Blair has made clear, our fundamental challenge is how to make Europe work better.

If there was to be a new Europe, there not only had to be a common market, but also great mobility in labor.

I am a very committed European.

Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.

None of today’s leading indicators existed a century ago. They were invented to measure the economies of the industrial nation-states of the mid-20th Century… The 21st Century, however, is proving more difficult to measure.

The Commission is extremely important. The E.U. without the Commission would not be the European Union.

During the 20th century, the greatest danger to European stability was Germany's sense of its special destiny. During the 21st century, the greatest danger to European stability is Germany's reluctance to accept its special destiny.

You can't deepen the European Union against the wishes of the European countries.

Effectively, the EU is a very powerful bureaucracy, dominated now by the German elite, which is backed by the rest of the European Union members.

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.

As complicated and complex and as difficult as we are, the unity of Europe is a pre-condition for a better organized world, and if the European Union would fail or decompose, or other members left, the U.S. would have a more difficult role to play in the world.

Our biggest threat is not too much Europe, but too little.

We have to be serious and consistent if we believe the European Union makes sense. I believe it makes sense.

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.

Europe is a much more complex historical, cultural, and geographical concept than is envisaged in the reduced approach by the European Union.

When we look at policy, it's important we make sure that it's up to date and reflective of the way the world works today - and where the world is heading in the future.

The most important thing is that Europe has to remain united.

We have to make the argument that the only economically sound place to be is within Europe - we have to remember, it's history again, that there are reasons we bound ourselves together as a set of European nations and it all came out of the second world war.

There's going to be a need for a system of cooperation within the continent of Europe including the U.K. that covers both economic and political cooperation.

Let's not underestimate the European Union. You know what united Europe? Values. And that's why I am absolutely sure about the unity of the European Union and its solidarity with Ukraine.