European Governance Quotes

The advantage of being armed ... the Americans possess over the people of all other nations.... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The European Union, which is not directly responsible to voters, provides an irresistible opportunity for European elites to seize power in order to impose their own vision on a newly socially regimented Europe.

It's up to [Angela Merkel] whether she wants to stand again and then ultimately, it'll be up to the German people to decide what the future holds. If I were here and I were German and I had a vote, I might support her.

If we were to have a presidential election in Europe it would be an event that would spark a huge interest in people from Lisbon to Helsinki, just like national elections. And it would create a completely different political setting in Europe.

We could not have parliamentary sovereignty with a European Parliament.

Adding an overarching tier of tyrants - the EU - to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.

Economically and politically, Germany is extremely stable. There are countries with functioning governments whose institutions don't work. My only concern is about Europe. There's a risk we will run out of time. We have been blessed with a pro-European French president, but we are also approaching the next elections for the European Parliament in 2019, and it will be important for pro-European parties present a credible answer to the anti-Europeans on the left and the right.

The bureaucratic method of building an integrated Europe has exhausted its potential.

We are entering a new phase of European politics. What is decisive is not only do we have a single currency area, but also that it is accompanied by a co-ordinated economic and financial policy. We must drive forward tax harmonisation in Europe.

'Federalism', in the context of political and media usage in Britain, has come to mean the creation and imposition of a European superstate, one centralised in Brussels.

Look at the European Parliament. There are a lot of people who are looking for simplistic solutions, for - who are sort of preaching policies of - well, very unfriendly policies.

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

We have more and more rules coming out of Europe telling us what to do, and I think people are getting a bit fed up with it. This was supposed to be a common market. I don't remember them ever saying we would be governed by Brussels and become a satellite of Europe.

Europe needs an engine, and the Franco-German motor has provided that when the two nations have converged on important topics during critical periods. But that partnership shouldn't be a directorate for other EU members.

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.

Europe has shown how government can be organised in a network. Its institutions both compete and co-operate and include a directly elected parliament that does not appoint the executive, independent judiciaries and a complex set of relationships between the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament.

I did publish a Bill once called "Common Sense" with a new constitution for Europe called the "Commonwealth of Europe," setting it all out - what it's rights were, how it would work. And I think that that will be where is has to go. But I'm not anti-European, I'm just a democrat, a very committed democrat. I don't see why the hell I should obey a law made by someone I didn't elect and can't remove.

The euro currency both presupposes and promotes a fiction - that 'Europe' has somehow become, against the wishes of most Europeans, a political rather than a merely geographic expression.

The European Union Treaty... within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed of after the war, the United States of Europe.

I am glad that Angela Merkel is the German Chancellor, as she tries to combine a sense of responsibility with morality and values. Because this is the essence of Europe.

European Parliament should not be involved in foreign politics.

So yes, European decision making is not pretty. But it does work.

I am going to leave the future of Europe to the Europeans.

We need a big debate in society about how we are going to shape Europe and tame capitalism. A government must provide direction and make concrete proposals. It is one of Angela Merkel's biggest failings that she doesn't do this.

After choosing monetary union, further political union and workable governance in Europe was always going to be necessary.