|
| |
Zut! The Euro - like the Channel Tunnel - was one of Napoleon's little schemes. See his horse's skeleton in London's National Army Museum.
|
"My brother, if you mint coins, I want you to adopt the same divisions of value as in French money... I've already done the same thing for my own Kingdom of Italy. The confederated Princes have done the same thing. That way there will be uniformity of currency throughout Europe, which will make trading much easier."
["Mon frère, si vous faites frapper de la monnaie, je désire que vous adoptiez les mêmes divisions de valeur que dans les monnaies de France...J'ai déjà fait la même chose pour mon royaume d'Italie. Les princes confédérés font la même chose. De cette manière, il y aura dans toute l'Europe uniformité de monnaie, ce qui sera d'un grand avantage pour le commerce"]
|
|
Napoleon Boneparte (Napoleon I), 6 May 1807, in a letter to his brother Louis, King of Naples.
|
"Monetary Union is the motor of European integration"
|
|
Jean-Luc Dehaene, Prime Minister of Belgium.
|
"The dollar is, overall, more important to the British economy than is the Euro. The pound is far more stable against the dollar than the pound is against the Euro or the Euro is against the dollar. Any currency stability for our trade with the Eurozone would be balanced by increased volatility for our trade with the rest of the world."
"The richest state in Asia is Singapore - a small island with almost no natural resources; the richest country in Europe is Switzerland, which is not even in the EU, never mind the Euro."
|
|
'In or out - the case against the Euro', Fabian Society Pamphlet by Janet Bush and Larry Elliott, Labour party policy wonks. 3 August 2002.
|
"With hindsight, 2003 was the year when serious cracks in the European political compound became apparent... 2004 could be the year when markets begin to price in some dire consequences... Investors who make decisions for the long term should allow for the risk of the Euro falling apart."
|
|
Joachim Fels, Economist, Morgan Stanley. 'Euro Wreckage?' report, February 2004. The nightmare scenario according to Fels occurs if markets perceive there is a real risk of Euro break-up, interest rates in the "Club Med" countries rise sharply, causing their budget deficits to spiral up from 3% of GDP towards 10% and leading to a vicious cycle of lost confidence.
|
"On 1 January 1999 with the introduction of the Euro ... an important part of national sovereignty, to wit monetary sovereignty, was passed over to a European institution ... The introduction of a common currency is not primarily an economic, but rather a sovereign and thus eminently political act...political union must be our lodestar from now on: it is the logical follow-on from Economic and Monetary Union."
|
|
Joschka Fischer, German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor since 1998. Former Communist firebrand and photographed beater-up of a policeman (ironically called Mr Marx). Speech to the European Parliament, January 1999.
|
"...Europe exemplifies a situation unfavourable to a common currency. It is composed of separate nations, speaking different languages, with different customs, and having citizens feeling far greater loyalty and attachment to their own country than to a common market or to the idea of Europe".
|
|
Professor Milton Friedman, The Times 19 November 1997.
|
"The finance of the country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which the English liberty has been gradually acquired. If the House of Commons by any possibility loses the power of control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison."
|
|
William Ewart Gladstone, British Liberal Prime Minister 1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, and 1892-94. Speech in the House of Commons, 1891.
|
"The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community ... it is a decision of an essentially political nature. We need this United Europe ... we must never forget that the Euro is an instrument for this project."
|
|
Felipe Gonzalez, Socialist Prime Minister of Spain from 1982 to 1996. May 1998.
|
"There is no example in history of a lasting monetary union that was not linked to one State."
|
|
Otmar Issuing, Chief Economist of the German Bundesbank Council,1991.
|
"Any nation which gives up its freedom in pursuit of economic advantage deserves to lose both."
|
|
Thomas Jefferson, US President 1801-1809.
|
"A single currency is about the politics of Europe. It is about a Federal Europe by the back door."
|
|
John Major, British Conservative politician, Prime Minister 1991-1997, widely viewed as a failure and famous mainly for calling Eurosceptics bastards and shagging Edwina Currie. November 1996.
|
"The fusion of economic functions would compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European State"
|
|
Jean Monnet, founder of the European Movement. Former Cognac salesman and bureaucrat at the League of Nations. 3rd April 1952
|
"We have started a new chapter in the structure of Europe. The Euro was not just a bankers' decision or a technical decision. It was a decision that completely changed the nature of the nation states."
"The pillars of the nation state are the sword and the currency, and we changed that."
"[My] real goal [is to draw on] the consequences of the single currency and create a political Europe."
|
|
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Interview in the Financial Times, April 1999.
|
"The Euro can only lead to closer and closer integration of countries' economic policies ... This demands that member states give up more sovereignty".
|
|
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Interview in Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1999.
|
"We must now face the difficult task of moving forward towards a single economy, a single political entity... For the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire we have the opportunity to unite Europe."
|
|
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President, speech to European Parliament, 13th October 1999.
|
"The single market was the theme of the Eighties. The single currency was the theme of the Nineties. We must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity."
|
|
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President, speech to European Parliament, 14 April 1999.
|
|
"I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created."
|
|
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Financial Times, 4 December 2001. Amazing, the front on these guys. So a future crisis is not seen as an indictment of the current system but an opportunity to extend it.
|
|
"I know very well that the Stability Pact [which fines Euro-zone countries if they persistently run budget deficits over 3%] is stupid, like all decisions which are rigid."
|
|
Romano Prodi, EU Commission President. Interview with le Monde, 17 Oct 2002. The Stability Pact immediately became known as the Stupidity Pact.
|
"[European Monetary Union is] a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe ... [if you are prepared to give up Sovereignty to the EU] you might just as well give it to Adolf Hitler, frankly."
|
|
Nicholas Ridley (1929 - 1993) Secretary of State for Trade and Industry under Margaret Thatcher, taking a career-ending dive into the swivel-eyed tendency, for which he was forced to resign. From an interview in Spectator magazine, July 1990.
|
"[What is needed is the] Europeanisation of everything to do with economic and financial policy. European Monetary Union has to be complemented with political union - that was always the presumption of Europeans."
|
|
Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor from 1998 who does NOT dye his hair. Interview, 2002. Well that's pretty clear.
|
"Of course the risks will remain, especially if we don't follow up the bold step that led to a single currency with further bold steps towards political integration".
|
|
Gerhard Schröder, German Chancellor from 1998. Date uncertain.
|
"The introduction of the Euro is probably the most important integrating step since the beginning of the unification process. It is certain that the times of individual national efforts regarding employment policies, social and tax policies are definitely over. This will require to finally bury some erroneous ideas of national sovereignty... I am convinced our standing in the world regarding foreign trade and international finance policies will sooner or later force a Common Foreign and Security Policy worthy of its name... National sovereignty in foreign and security policy will soon prove itself to be a product of the imagination."
|
|
Gerhard Schroeder, German Chancellor from 1998. From 'New Foundations for European Integration', 19th January 1999.
|
"Up yours, Delors"
|
|
Immortal headline in the Sun, British Tabloid Newspaper, 1 November 1990. In response to Delors Report outlining need for single European currency.
|
"A European currency will lead to member-nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policies as well as in monetary affairs... It is an illusion to think that States can hold on to their autonomy over taxation policies."
|
|
Hans Tietmeyer, Bundesbank President. Date uncertain.
|
"When exercising the powers and carrying out the tasks and duties conferred upon them ... neither the ECB, nor a national central bank, nor any member of their decision making bodies shall seek or take instructions from Community institutions or bodies, from any government of a Member State or from any other body. "
|
|
Treaty of Rome, 1957, Article 107. This doesn't explain why it was so important that the second head of the ECB be French, since he's not allowed by law to act in the interest of any one country.
|
"There was a threat to employment from the movement to Economic and Monetary Union...(with) fixed exchange rates, restricting industrial growth and so putting jobs at risk. This threat has been removed."
|
|
Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister 1964-70 and 1974-76. Speech in the run up to the 1975 Referendum. Sadly the threat was not removed, only postponed.
|
"The process of monetary union goes hand in hand, must go hand in hand, with political integration and ultimately political union. EMU is, and always was meant to be, a stepping stone on the way to a united Europe."
|
|
Wim Duisenburg, President of the European Central Bank. Date uncertain. Note the choice of words "was always meant to be", which communicates a false inevitability.
|
If you have an authenticated quotation on Europe, the EEC or the EU that you think should be listed here, then email me .
|
