Nicola Sturgeon Quotes

It is time we in Scotland put England in its proper place and instead of our leaning on England and taking inspiration from her, we should lean and turn to Europe, for it is there our future prosperity lies.

If Turkey become a member of the EU, of course Turks would lose a part of this identity, just as Europe would lose a part of its own. It would also be a different Europe then. Accepting Turkey into the EU is an ambitious political endeavor of historical proportions. Europe would become a strong, multi-religious unit.

Croatia did not want Europe to be divided as to the start of Croatia's EU entry talks.

My message is a simple one - the E.U. is not perfect, but Scotland's interests are best served by being a member.

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.

I am absolutely convinced that the E.U. will still be around. I am convinced the U.K. will be sitting at that table and not negotiating an exit, but being there to stay.

I think that it is becoming more and more clear that the European Union is an indispensable partner in some fields.

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

I have spent more time thinking about European issues than even I can imagine - so many years thinking about Britain and the way our influence around the world was amplified through the European Union.

Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has helped Ireland to take its place as a European country with all the member states, including Britain. It has therefore helped the maturing of a good bilateral relationship with Britain, lifting part of the burden of history.

The crisis in Ukraine is all the European Union's fault. Its leaders negotiated a trade deal with Ukraine, which essentially blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia.

If there is a Greek exit from the Eurozone, I think the German elite will be quite pleased that they can then use that to restructure the Eurozone and make it a zone where only strong countries are allowed in. There would then be two tiers within the European Union, which is in fact already happening. But you cannot simply get rid of German control by raising the specter of the Third Reich. That's ahistorical.

Poland is smaller than France or Germany, for example. What would a common foreign policy look like? Would the trip I took to Kiev last week require a detour through Brussels in the future? Would it require approval from Brussels? While the West, for its part, doesn't think twice about other countries when it comes to its projects?

I hope that a German foreign policy in 2028 will be part of a European foreign policy, because even the strong country of Germany won't really have a voice in the world if it is not part of a European voice.

Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has enabled Ireland to re-find its sense of participation - cultural, political, social - at the European level. I think that also opens up possibilities for Ireland as a European country to look outward - to look particularly, for example, at countries to which a lot of Irish people emigrated, to our links - our human links - with the United States, with Canada, with Australia, with New Zealand. And to look also, because of our history, at our links to the developing countries.

Turkey will "inevitably" join the EU in our lifetime unless we vote to leave.

But it is the best thing that we have for bringing the countries of Europe around the same table and for forging compromises so that people here can live in peace, freedom and prosperity. In a world which is growing closer together all the time, we can only survive and influence the rules if we join forces. We will miss the presence of the United Kingdom at this table.

Just as I believe that Britain should want to remain in the EU so the EU should want us to stay.

I've always felt fine about Putin. I think he is a strong leader, he's a powerful leader, he's represented his country the way - the country is being represented.

Germany will continue to play a central - perhaps even a more important - role in the European Union. I think that we will all miss the pragmatic approach of the British, however, particularly in those long nights of negotiation.

The lessons are, unfortunately, that a small weak country that is facing an extremely hostile and very violent superpower will not make much progress unless there's a strong solidarity movement within the superpower that will restrain its actions. With more support within the United States, I think the Haitian efforts could have succeeded.

It [European Union] has kept the peace in Europe. Countries used to fight and now they talk. We should be attached to that.

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

There were various different keys in which European history had tended to be written. One is the lyrical key, the idea that somehow, in Bretton-Woods in 1945, a bunch of well-intentioned men got together and said, "This can't go on; let's build a European Union." And it just wasn't like that.

I know there are some voices calling for a punitive deal that punishes Britain. That would be an act of calamitous self-harm for the countries of Europe, and it would not be the act of a friend.