With the EU taking in ten more countries and adopting a new Constitution, organisations need more than ever intelligent professional help in engaging with the EU institutions.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is a growing frustration that the EU is seen as something that is done to people rather than acting on their behalf. And this is being intensified by the very solutions required to resolve the economic problems.
All of us, the government, parliament, local authorities and the society must demonstrate determination and readiness to use knowledge and capabilities... toward full European integration.
Yet in order to make sure the European social model keeps up with the pace of economic change that is now necessary, the EU must embrace a new approach to lawmaking.
Speaking from my experience as a person involved for a long time in building the European Union, it is important to have patience and efforts to build a community of nations.
People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.
The EU should be concentrated on adapting to globalisation and global competitiveness, not building more powerful centralised institutions in Brussels.
Because with courage and conviction I believe we can deliver a more flexible, adaptable and open European Union in which the interests and ambitions of all its members can be met.
The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.
The structures in Europe in a globalising economy need to be modernised, need to be more integrated, need to be stronger.
Nonetheless, we continue to be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state, guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized government.
No opposing quotes found.