Quote

As the world undergoes a major transformation, it's the time of significant opportunity and also threat.

Nationalist, anti-European, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim public political figures, seem a worrying picture of a possible European future. We could still fall back into pre-Europe... and it worries me.

Over time, Europeans have come to rely on governments to protect them from the rougher facets of private enterprise and to look after them in old age.

But we can turn challenges into opportunities if we look outwards to the realities of the global economy and modernise our internal institutions in ways that will equip Europe to meet that challenge and create confidence amongst the public.

Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.

I think people in Europe are generally pessimistic about the future. They have low expectations; they're not working hard to change things. When you're a slacker with a pessimistic view of the future, you're likely to meet those expectations.

Movement of people is taking place on an immense scale, and from a European perspective, the number of potential future immigrants seems limitless.

So I think that is from the European perspective, for the European future, this engagement can be one of the most important and effective decisions in the last 50 years maybe.

For years, we have heard warnings that Europe needs to contribute more to NATO's capability.

I believe that there are better opportunities to keep people safe if we are outside the European Union.