Jan Peter Balkenende Quotes

Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems. A major country like the United States has to have a broadly-conceived program for effective international action, influence and cooperation with others.

I would hope that Europe always has a privileged relationship with the United States. The alternatives are not attractive.

It is not a winning game for Europeans to have a hostility to the United States.

While there are few problems in today's world that the United States can solve alone, there are even fewer that can be solved without the United States.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

Global challenges also require global solutions, and few indeed are the situations in which the United States or any other country can act completely alone.

The Americans should stop insulting us, I'm not going to be an accomplice to the depopulation of the land. It's not up to the Americans to tell us how to organize our farm policy and the balance of our society. Their attitude is to treat the EC as if it had the plague and then encourage the rest of the world to join in.

It's true that America can't solve every problem, but I don't know of any major problem in the world that can be solved without us.

We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don't have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it's climate change or whether it's technological disruption.

The United Nations should serve as a forum to address our common challenges. And it must also be a space to generate solutions for mutual benefit. This is the very essence of what the United Nations is about. We must position the multilateral system to better serve our people and deliver on their aspirations.

All the major problems of the world today are global in essence, and they cannot be solved unless through some kind of global cooperation. It's not just climate change, which is, like, the most obvious example people give. I think more in terms of technological disruption.

There’s no longer a superpower standoff. But there are real problems that divide countries around the world. And the UN is still the place where we can get together and try and discuss them.

If we had joined efforts some time ago [with U.S], we could have avoided many problems the world is facing now, I believe.

We are proceeding on the basis of common values. We have more to gain from partnership, from promoting our partnership in dealing with the big global challenges. I, therefore, believe that in the near future, not much is going to change in the relations between E.U., Greece and the United States of America. These are relations that were forged under very difficult conditions and rely on the common values of our people.

It doesn't mean we're not going to be tough across the world, it doesn't mean that we're not going to always put America first in everything we do. But we have big problems in this world. And I don't think we can solve these big problems by making believe that people don't exist. They exist. We have to talk to people.

You can't buy peace by just wishing it and avoiding the challenges that other nations present to you.

In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.

The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another.

There is no reason why the US and the UK cannot have close relations.

I travel a lot on foreign policy, as you know. I'm in Europe a lot. I travelled over a million miles as vice president. They didn't do stimulus. Look where they are. Come on. I mean, this is like, I just get so frustrated. Like come on.

I'm not so sure the role of the United States is going around the world saying this is the way its gotta be.

Foreign policy isn't something that is great and big, it's common sense and humanity as it applies to my affairs and yours.

The United States is willing to exert strong leadership to give diplomacy its very best chance to succeed.

A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas.

I certainly am not alone in the world with this demand; I am in the best of company. Let it be said that no self-respecting people and no responsible government would be able to think or much less act differently in such a case. The world has already seen a great many wars lost in the past.