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

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.

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.

The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault.

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

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.