European Integration Quotes

Perhaps our own opposition to even the level of European integration we have now, let alone any more, is well known.

If there are further steps to European integration, the people should have their say at a general election or in a referendum.

I have never understood why public opinion about European ideas should be taken into account.

When it becomes serious, you have to lie.

To promote the process of European integration, we must improve an institutional mechanism already existing in the European Union, reinforced co-operation, by making it more flexible and effective. This approach allows a few states to move faster and further... We are all aware that this mechanism is vital.

The desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom.

We've got to demonstrate why European unity and integration, our vast single market, our single currency, equip us with the strength to embrace globalization.

Cooperation and solidarity are necessary requirements in order to bring about the solutions that will once again bring stability to the European integration and bring it back to the track of growth.

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.

Czech Republic is an important part of central Europe. It's clear that we must participate in European integration. I am convinced that the Czech Republic - or, in the past, Czechoslovakia - would have been one of the founding members of the EU if it hadn't been for the communist takeover in 1948.

I aim to help the Germans and the Europeans successfully travel all the way down the path toward European integration, and I can do this more effectively if I don't commit myself to a party.

We are involved in a constitution-building process of historic importance. The Convention should mark a new stage in European integration.

What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.

The future will belong to the Germans... ...when we build the House of Europe. In the next two years, we will make the process of European integration irreversible. This is a really big battle but it is worth the fight.

The development of European integration can be divided into two phases. The first era ended with the Maastricht Treaty. It was a liberalization phase, with the main goal of European integration at the time being the removal of various barriers and borders in Europe. The second phase is a homogenization or standardization phase, one that involves regulation from the top and growing control over our lives. This no longer has anything to do with freedom and democracy.

Integration is the most important asset Europe has, and the key component to European integration is the euro.