If you don't have collective agreements between unions and employers, governments have to legislate more.

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.

This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.

The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that's not equity, it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people.

Any union that can't accept workers choosing their own representatives through universal franchise is finished.

We will have to create an avant-garde.... We could have a Union for the enlarged Europe, and a Federation for the avant-garde.

The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.