“Europe is a commercial giant and an economic power of the first rank, but it is a political dwarf. Political cooperation in the Community will grow. The question is whether the supply services will follow.”

—  Jacques Delors

Speech to the press (3 December 1980), quoted in The Times (4 December 1980), p. 5
Member of the European Parliament

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Europe is a commercial giant and an economic power of the first rank, but it is a political dwarf. Political cooperatio…" by Jacques Delors?
Jacques Delors photo
Jacques Delors 22
French economist and politician 1925

Related quotes

Mark Eyskens photo

“Europe is an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm.”

Mark Eyskens (1933) Belgian politician

As quoted by Craig R. Whitney in WAR IN THE GULF: EUROPE; Gulf Fighting Shatters Europeans' Fragile Unity, The New York Times, January 25th, 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/25/world/war-in-the-gulf-europe-gulf-fighting-shatters-europeans-fragile-unity.html?pagewanted=1
This phrase was pronounced in January 1991, a few days before the beginning of Desert Storm, while Eyskens was the Foreign Minister of Belgium.

Wilkie Collins photo

“Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

“The fundamental question of politics has always been whether there should be politics.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Foreword (1984) to The Market for Liberty (1970)
Context: The most interesting political questions throughout history have been whether or not humans will be ruled or free, whether they will be responsible for their actions as individuals or left irresponsible as members of society, and whether they can live in peace by volitional agreements alone.The fundamental question of politics has always been whether there should be politics.

“…today everything is commercialized--politics, religion, education, ideology, belief, the armed services. …Everything has its price.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

“Majorities are of two sorts: (1) Communal majority and (ii) political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born. The admission to a political majority is open. The door in a communal majority is closed. The politics of political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of community majority are made by its own members born in it.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination (2010)

“Europe's economic greed was instrumentalized by Arab League policy in a long-term political strategy targeting Israel, Europe, and America. […] Through the labyrinth of the EAD system, a policy of Israel's delegitimization was planned at both the EC's national and international levels. […] Strategically, the Euro-Arab Cooperation was a political instrument for anti-Americanism in Europe, whose aim was to separate and weaken the two continents by an incitement to hostility and the permanent denigration of American policy in the Middle East.”

Bat Ye'or (1933) British writer

Bat Ye'Or, " Eurabia The road to Munich... http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/the-road-to-munich.pdf", National Review, 2002-10-09

“The most interesting political questions throughout history have been whether or not humans will be ruled or free, whether they will be responsible for their actions as individuals or left irresponsible as members of society, and whether they can live in peace by volitional agreements alone.The fundamental question of politics has always been whether there should be politics.”

Karl Hess (1923–1994) American journalist

Foreword (1984) to The Market for Liberty (1970)

Aldous Huxley photo

“It is a political axiom that power follows property.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World Revisited

Source: Brave New World Revisited (1958), Chapter 12 (p. 113)

Arsène Wenger photo

“Politically, I am for efficiency. Economically first.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

Joint Interview with The Times and Daily Mail (2009)
Context: Politically, I am for efficiency. Economically first. Until the 1980s the world was divided into two, people were either communist or capitalist. The communist model does not work economically, we all realised that, but the capitalist model in the modern world also looks to be unsustainable. You cannot ignore individual interests, but I believe the world evolves slowly. The last 30 years have brought a minimum amount of money for everybody in the west, the next step, politically, would be a maximum amount of money earned by everybody.

C. Wright Mills photo

“To have peace and not war, the drift toward a war economy, as facilitated by the moves and the demands of the sophisticated conservatives, must be stopped; to have peace without slump, the tactics and policies of the practical right must be overcome. The political and economic power of both must be broken. The power of these giants of main drift is both economically and politically anchored; both unions and an independent labor party are needed to struggle effective.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

The New Men of Power (1948).
1940s

Related topics