It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe, but it is a claim from which I will not recede and which, God willing, I will make good.
I represent a party which does not yet exist: the party Revolution-Civilization. This party will make the twentieth century. There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.
The retinue of a grandee in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous and splendid than that of the richest subjects of Europe.
I was turned out because I said to Europe no, no, no. That no, no , no has now turned into yes, yes. Two yes's not three because he got the Social Chapter out and he's reserved his position on the single currency.
I believe we should continue to have a partnership of national states each retaining the right to protect its vital interests, but developing more effectively than at present the habit of working together.
Here in Europe some of the challenges have to do with structures that are so complicated. You've got Brussels, and you've got parliament, you've got councils and then you've got national governments. So people sometimes don't feel as if they know who's making decisions, and the more that we can bring people in and engage them, the better. Some of it is also cultural and social, people's sense of identity.
We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed. And should European statesmen address us in the words which were used of old — “Shall I speak for thee to the King or the Captain of the host?” — we should reply with the Shunamite woman: “Nay, Sir, for we dwell among our own people.”
No two countries are identical, and obviously, there's a difference between a referendum on a very complex relationship between Great Britain and the rest of Europe, and a presidential election in the United States.
A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas.
We are participants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world.... We are partners with the rest. What affects mankind isinevitably our affair as well as the nations of Europe and Asia.
Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility.