European Union Reform Quotes

When we look at the situation in the EU, we need to honestly admit that it desperately needs to develop further, that we need to strengthen it when it comes to the bigger questions - and allow member nations to make more decisions about the smaller questions themselves.

Because with courage and conviction I believe we can deliver a more flexible, adaptable and open European Union in which the interests and ambitions of all its members can be met.

Of course, no-one thinks the EU is perfect. In recent years, the pace of social reform has slowed. But staying in offers the chance to rebuild a vision of Europe for workers, regardless of the passport they hold.

My ideal world is, we're there, we're in the EU, trying to make it better.

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

I believe many people - especially small- and medium-sized enterprises across the European Union - are disenchanted with Europe because we haven't delivered the goods.

The E.U. needs renewal, and we need a strong U.K. at the table to help to drive the reform agenda that can help the union regain competitiveness and growth.

If the euro zone doesn't come up with a comprehensive vision of its own future, you'll have a whole range of nationalist, xenophobic and extreme movements increasing across the European Union. And, frankly, questions about the British debate on EU membership will just be a small sideshow compared to the rise of political populism.

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

We are a great country, and whatever choice we make we will still be great. But I believe the choice is between being an even greater Britain inside a reformed EU or a great leap into the unknown.

The most pressing and significant problems in the global economy are unsustainable structural issues with regard to the E.U. - fiscal deficits and the structure of the E.U. itself.

It's my damn duty and obligation to do everything possible for Europe to find a united path.

We need a change of course in the European Union. The most important is the focus on the big questions and a European Union that steps back on the small questions.

But we need to show that the EU can modernise itself, can adapt to the needs of its citizens, can take their views into account. That will be our ambition for the UK Presidency.

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

Since 2005, when the French and the Dutch voted "no" on a constitution for Europe, nobody has developed a real project for the EU. And certainly not France. If there were ideas, they came from Wolfgang Schäuble or Joschka Fischer, and these German ideas were downright quashed by France. I want to put an end to that.

I assumed office to bring the EU to a point from which there is no going back. Instead, I am having to unwind the EU to a certain extent.

The Treaty of Lisbon gave the European parliament a stronger role as co-legislator and the European Council its own president. Furthermore, the treaty introduced checks on subsidiarity - the concept that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the citizens - in an effort to cut back on unnecessary rules and regulations.

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

There are huge political problems in Germany, but German economic power is something which was bound to happen. The way out of this situation is through the further democratization of the European Union and a changing of its structures.

I think that Europe has to get its act together very quickly. The Belgian guy who's leading the negotiations against Brexit, he sees it as a whole chance to reboot Europe and reclaim the kind of social mission of Europe from all this corporate, bureaucratic, globalist stuff that has got into, building Europe for the people rather than the banks, again.

Let me be absolutely clear: I think it is defeatist to sort of say we want to leave the European Union. We're going to try and change the rules and change the way it works and change the objectives that it has in order to make it something that works for Britain.

What I am proposing is to start a new chapter in Europe. To begin this adventure anew, and differently, if you'd like. The institutions as such aren't particularly important to me - and I think most people feel the same.

We must build a kind of United States of Europe.

What's going to happen is that there will be a definite consensus that Europe is not working. The diagnosis will be to shed the currency and keep the rest, or that Europe is not working and a broader rejection - like in the U.K.