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Europe has a lot of strength. We need to pool that strength, and I am very much in favour of that - more of a deeper political union.

Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity.

Especially in the West, people want to understand Asia on a deeper level because it's become the engine of the world economy, like it or not.

I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.

In Switzerland, we have a centuries-old tradition of living together in one confederation and one society. That holds us back from excesses. We are a civilized and enlightened community and, by practising multicultural tolerance, we manage to stop extreme developments from going too far.

When I see the cultural diversity that exists today, I feel that we must defend it, and we need Europe, because otherwise we are going to live in a society with a single model, the Anglo-American model.

After all, you're not exactly a nation like all the other nations. You are unique, if only because you are such an ancient people, and because of the way you are spread all over the world and your obvious success in many fields.

One always likes to think that other countries are not like one's own.

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.

Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today.