42 Quotes by Jacques Delors

My objective is that before the end of the millennium Europe should have a true federation. The Commission should become a political executive which can define essential common interests...responsible before the European Parliament and before the nation-states represented how you will, by the European Council or by a second chamber of national parliaments.

Contrary to what people say, my wife never turned me away from the presidency. She told me to reflect on it and do what I wanted.

For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility.

The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.

This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.

My presidential victory, if it had happened, would have been artificial in relation to the Socialist party. It may be that on my deathbed, I will come to regret my decision, but for the moment, I live at peace with it.

Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

The problem with a purely collective system is not only that it requires economic growth, and the right sort of demographic trends, but that it prevents people thinking about their futures in a responsible way.