Jacques Delors Quotes

• 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.

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Alongside, Markets, Agreement

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Solidarity, Socialism, Responsibility, Cool

• I would not be opposed to devising a new system of pensions, in which one part was based on collective provision, but which also gave incentives for people to take out an additional, personal plan.

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Based, Incentives, Provision, Provisional, Devise, Pension, Plan

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Emasculates, Obliterates, Personal Responsibility, Principle

• My presidential victory, if it had happened, would have been artificial in relation to the Socialist party. It may be that on my deathbed, I will come to regret my decision, but for the moment, I live at peace with it.

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Decisions, Victory

  Tags in Presidential, Socialist, Artificial, Consortium, Moment, Regret

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Cinema, Explains, Weak

• 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.

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Society

  Tags in Finance, People, Should

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Worker, Universal, Finished

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Useful

• The countries that share this conception should be able to go further together, without excluding the others, since they can still live in a greater community of exchange and co-operation.

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Excluding, Exchange

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Europe, Irresponsibility, Counter Offensive, Driving, Liberal

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

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Governments, Governed, Widening, Distance

• 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.

  Jacques Delors

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Economist, Prevents, Sort, Collective, Growth

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

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in Unions, Contracts

• Fundamentally, American society is composed of individuals who don’t go out of their way to do each other favours.

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in Fundamentally, Composed, Individuals, Favours

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

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in Decline, France, Resign, Intelligentsia, Ascending, Pragmatism

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

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in Slog, Fresher, Lucid

• The European model is, first, a social and economic system founded on the role of the market, for no computer in the world can process information better than the market.

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in System, Role, Model

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

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in Decline, Fault

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

  Jacques Delors

  Tags in Citizenship, Wider

Jacques Delors (23)

Birth:	20th July, 1925
Nationality:	French
Profession:	Economist, Politician

About

Jacques Lucien Jean Delors was born in Paris, France. He is a French economist and politician, previously the eighth President of the European Commission and the first person to serve three terms in that office. He is the father of Martine Aubry, the former first secretary of the Socialist Party of France. Under President François Mitterrand, he served as Economics and Finance Minister from 1981 to 1984. In 1990 he received the Freedom medal.

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