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European policy is always an interplay of rationality and emotion.

Martin Schulz

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Martin Schulz
Age: 68
Born: 1955
Born: December 20
Bookseller
German Politician
Non-Fiction Writer
Politician
Rationality
European
Policy
Emotion
Always
Interplay

More quotes by Martin Schulz

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Donald Trump is betraying everything that made America great: tolerance, democratic institutions and respect for the individual. In that sense, Trump is the most un-American U.S. president that the country has had in a long time.
Martin Schulz
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If we want to defeat Islamic State, we first have to arrive at a cease-fire agreement in Syria. Once that has been achieved, an anti-IS coalition can be assembled, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran. That, however, will be significantly more difficult in the wake of Turkey's downing of the Russian plane.
Martin Schulz
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Political leaders need to formulate long-term EU goals that show: Yes, we want to stay together.
Martin Schulz
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In times of upheaval, people wish for nothing more than composure and sincerity.
Martin Schulz
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Turkey has in interest in finding agreement on more permissive visa requirements, it wants to be recognized as a safe country of origin and it wants to finally return to constructive EU accession negotiations. We Europeans decide all of those things together.
Martin Schulz
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We won't get any growth in Greece by just imposing cuts. What I would prefer is a special economic zone for Greece.
Martin Schulz
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Referendums are a democratic instrument, but so are decisions reached in a parliamentary democracy. I advise extreme caution when it comes to referendums. In Germany too.
Martin Schulz
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The EU is a community of values, not military buildups.
Martin Schulz
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In 2003, Helmut Schmidt said: Predatory capitalism exists, we have to civilize it and we can do that via Europe. He was right. We haven't tried hard enough.
Martin Schulz
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We have committed ourselves to pursue joint policies, but then national governments say, We aren't bound by that. That is a dramatic situation, because solidarity is a basic principle that cannot be had on an à la carte basis. If we have rules that nobody adheres to, then the community will break apart.
Martin Schulz
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We Germans are particularly aware that you can only be successful on the global market over the long term if you offer energy-efficient products that are, by nature, climate-friendly.
Martin Schulz
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We have to engage in a dialogue with Donald Trump because he is the elected president of the United States of America. But we have to emphatically oppose his foreign policy ideas.
Martin Schulz
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I have no illusions. Of course, Russia is massively upgrading its military. We know that Russia is pursuing a policy of expansion. This is of course a cause for concern among Eastern European countries.
Martin Schulz
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I am a man of parliament, a man of the people. I am not a representative of the executives.
Martin Schulz
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We agree: Brussels can't regulate everything. I'm driven by something else: There are forces in Europe that want to generally give national policy priority over a common European approach. We have to prevent this.
Martin Schulz
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We all have to accept accusations that we ignored the refugee crisis for far too long. The first time that I referred to the Mediterranean Sea as Europe's cemetery was in October 2013, when hundreds of people drowned off Lampedusa. Italians, Maltese, Greeks and Spaniards have been pleading for help for years. But nobody cared.
Martin Schulz
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Britain, Europe's second largest economy, a member of the G-7 and the UN Security Council, wants to leave the EU. That weakens us and it weakens Britain.
Martin Schulz
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For many people, politics in Brussels and Strasbourg might as well be happening on another planet.
Martin Schulz
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[Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an adherent of realpolitik. He knows that international relations are not built on the strength of unilateral demands, but on solutions that are in everybody's best interest.
Martin Schulz
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At the time, Jean-Claude [Juncker] was already an important man in Brussels. I was a young representative in the European Parliament. We talked for a long time and from that point on, our connection became increasingly deep. But our working-class origins are at least as important to our bond.
Martin Schulz