European Union Expansion Quotes

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

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

EU expansion is, unfortunately, continuing without a constitution, as a gradual process of standardization - and that's far more dangerous. It is very difficult to slow down this process, which is being pushed forward without significant public participation.

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

We need to move forward, from the common currency to the banking union to a common financial policy and, in the middle-term, to a common foreign and security policy. That will take time, because we need to figure out how to deal with those countries that don't always want a more tightly integrated European Union.

If the euro becomes a factor promoting Europe's drifting apart, then the foundation of the European project is destroyed.

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

We [European countries] probably need to move forward together, each at their own speed. The faster ones, that could be the countries in the euro zone. The others would be those who are interested in the continued development of the common market, but reject the idea of an ever stronger political integration.

The Europe we are in the process of building is the Europe of the 21st century; it's not the Europe of the 20th century.

You have to consider that countries have now joined the EU that had no sovereignty for decades, countries like Poland, or others that weren't even countries, like the Baltic states. Independence is especially important for these states.

Europe existed before Britain joined it.

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 must build a kind of United States of Europe.

If tomorrow morning Brussels should decide to let Turkey in, Italians wouldn't be free to oppose it, neither in Parliament nor through a referendum. A

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.