Quote

In the highest government office, you have to be ready to bow out at any time, otherwise you are not a free individual anymore.

Jean-Claude Juncker

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jean-Claude Juncker
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: December 9
Former Prime Minister Of Luxembourg
Lawyer
Politician
Office
Highest
Ready
Free
Individual
Government
Bows
Time
Otherwise
Anymore

More quotes by Jean-Claude Juncker

Image
The Greek nation has to be respected. I am not in the camp of those who openly want to humiliate Greece.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
We can't completely rely on the aberrations of history to explain today's European necessities. Future-related issues are no less pressing.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
I'm convinced that, in the long term, a monetary union includes a joint debt policy under strict, mutually agreed upon conditions.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
I'm always quite amazed that people in Europe become unnerved when two institutions or two people have different views.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
Europe is a democracy and differences of opinion are part of it.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
I have a plan. It entails leading to a fair deal and relationship with the British. We will be reasonable, but we will also negotiate firmly and without gullibility. I believe we must come to an agreement for the people of Britain and the people on the Continent, but not under exclusively British terms.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
There is a distorted perception of what goes on in Brussels. No one reports on the Commission taking a hundred initiatives from its predecessor off the table in order to shift competencies back to member state governments.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
Since populists never miss an opportunity to create a lot of noise about anti-Europe stance. However, the repercussions of the British referendum could quickly put a stop to such crass rabble-rousing, as it should soon become clear that the UK was better off inside the EU - economically, socially and in foreign policy terms.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
The way some German politicians have lashed out at Greece when the country fell into the crisis has left deep wounds there. I was just as shocked by the banners of protesters in Athens that showed the German chancellor in a Nazi uniform.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
The European Union has decades of experience in overcoming crises and has always emerged stronger after.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
But anyone who believes that the eternal issue of war and peace in Europe has been permanently laid to rest could be making a monumental error. The demons haven't been banished they are merely sleeping, as the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo have shown us.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
I put my money on Brexit. The EU Financial Stability Commissioner, Jonathan Hill from Britain, still owes me a pound.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
The position of EU commissioner for economic and monetary affairs could be combined with the office of Euro Group chairman. That job would be a great challenge for anyone who assumed it. On the one hand, he would have to make proposals. On the other hand, he would have to negotiate compromises with his European counterparts.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
As a human being I am personally saddened, as I have a great deal of respect for the large number of British colleagues I have worked with over the years. That is why I personally invested countless hours, days and nights, in negotiating a fair deal for the United Kingdom.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
It's important to recognize that we in Europe will either succeed together or fail together.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
I assumed office to bring the EU to a point from which there is no going back. Instead, I am having to unwind the EU to a certain extent.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
Between now and then, after 43 years of European marriage, the whole body of legislation will therefore have to be disentangled. That entails a whole range of specific and very complex questions: what will be the future legal status of the millions of EU citizens in the UK and the millions of Britons on the continent?
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
Now it is firstly a matter of a clean divorce, because citizens and companies need legal certainty. Can there be a new partnership with the United Kingdom one day? All 27 Member States would have to agree to that. And the United Kingdom would first have to reflect on what it wants itself.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
During our religious instruction in school, we always asked: How can one prove the existence of God? And I have learned that the Catholic Church, which is never at a loss for an answer when it comes to existential questions, responds as follows: This question simply does not arise.
Jean-Claude Juncker
Image
There is a proposal to divide the currency zone into a north and a south euro. There is also the idea of setting up a core monetary union in the middle of Europe. I disapprove of these debates. Instead, we should devote all of our efforts to supplementing the monetary union with a political union.
Jean-Claude Juncker