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Jacques Delors Quotes


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Jacques Delors
June 20, 1925 -
Nationality: French
Category: Economist
Subcategory: French Economist

Even in Britain, the trade unions tell me that employment contracts have less protection than in the past.

   

The European model is in danger if we obliterate the principle of personal responsibility.

   

My problem is how to find the best way of being useful.

   

The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility.

   

The problem with a purely collective system is not only that it requires economic growth, and the right sort of demographic trends, but that it prevents people thinking about their futures in a responsible way.

   

Any union that can't accept workers choosing their own representatives through universal franchise is finished.

   

Therefore one should speak at the same time of national citizenship and wider European citizenship.

   

The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

   

I had to think whether, after 50 years of hard slog, I was still lucid and fresh enough for the job.

   

This weakening is worsened by the widening distance between the governed and their governments.

   

The problem of how we finance the welfare state should not obscure a separate issue: if each person thinks he has an inalienable right to welfare, no matter what happens to the world, that's not equity, it's just creating a society where you can't ask anything of people.

   

For me, socialism has always been about liberty and solidarity, but also about responsibility.

   

These days there are not enough of such intermediary groups, between the state and the individual, with the result that political leaders are often unduly guided by opinion polls.

   

If you don't have collective agreements between unions and employers, governments have to legislate more.

   

Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.

   

We have to struggle against the conservatives from all sides, not only the right-wingers, but also the left-wing conservatives who don't want to change anything.

   

I cannot resign myself to thi decline of Europe, and of France.

   

Yes, the European model remains superior to that of America and Japan.

   

The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault.

   

This desire for equity must not lead to an excess of welfare, where nobody is responsible for anything.

   

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