Quotes from Jean-Claude Juncker

From the very beginning Europe has been not only a success story but also a story of success achieved by learning.

The Luxembourg financial centre is based on several pillars, we are characterised by the breadth of our product range, we are an active participant in the international credit business.

Europe has to be about more than market, goods, and money.

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

We must go back to teach Europeans to love Europe.

Forgetting the importance of national landscapes, cultures, national behaviours, reactions, and reflexes is a big, big mistake.

It's important to recognize that we in Europe will either succeed together or fail together.

I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious ... I am for secret, dark debates.

I have another explanation [of Brexit]: In its 43 years of EU membership, Britain has never been able to decide whether it wants to fully or only partially belong to the EU.

The Greek nation has to be respected. I am not in the camp of those who openly want to humiliate Greece.

Anyone who believes that the eternal question of war and peace in Europe is no longer there risks being deeply mistaken.

We no longer have the pact from 1997; it was radically amended in 2005 and the Commission is applying this Stability Pact with wisdom and rationality.

The populists are spreading slogans. We have to offer solutions and answers.

The rule of law means that law and justice are upheld by an independent judiciary. The judgments of the European Court of Justice have to be respected by all. To undermine them, or to undermine the independence of national courts, is to strip citizens of their fundamental rights. The rule of law is not optional in the European Union. It is a must.

It is not acceptable that European Union countries are divided into those who give and those who take.

In a union of equals, there can be no second-class consumers. I will not accept that in some parts of Europe, people are sold food of lower quality than in other countries, despite the packaging and branding being identical.

As complicated and complex and as difficult as we are, the unity of Europe is a pre-condition for a better organized world, and if the European Union would fail or decompose, or other members left, the U.S. would have a more difficult role to play in the world.

Europe must not distance itself from Africa's universal ambitions.

However painful or regrettable Brexit may be, it will not stop the E.U. as it moves to the future; we need to move forward.

I am strictly against a European superstate.

Being described as a stupid bureaucrat with no link to representative democracy is difficult to take.

No, we should not be afraid of the populists; we should embrace those they are fighting.

The European Union has decades of experience in overcoming crises and has always emerged stronger after.

The European family may well be anything but perfect.