Jacques Delors Quotes
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This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.
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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.
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For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility.
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The Americans should stop insulting us, I'm not going to be an accomplice to the depopulation of the land. It's not up to the Americans to tell us how to organise our farm policy and the balance of our society. Their attitude is to treat the EC as if it had the plague and then encourage the rest of the world to join in.
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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.
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If you don't have collective agreements between unions and employers, governments have to legislate more.
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This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.
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I cannot resign myself to the decline of Europe, and of France.
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The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.
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Fundamentally, American society is composed of individuals who don't go out of their way to do each other favours.
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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.
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I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.
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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.
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I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.
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Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.
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These days there are not enough of such intermediary groups, between the state and the individual, with the result that political leaders are often unduly guided by opinion polls.
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The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility.
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Federalism is a guideline, not a pornographic word, you can speak it out loud...We have been focusing too much on a country that has said no, no, no!
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Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.
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The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.
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We have to struggle against the conservatives from all sides, not only the right-wingers, but also the left-wing conservatives who don't want to change anything.
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The countries that share this conception should be able to go further together, without excluding the others, since they can still live in a greater community of exchange and co-operation.
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Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.
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My problem is how to find the best way of being useful.