DIFFERENT VOICES

Date: 15/02/1996

“While President Clinton was on the phone with Athens and Ankara, the Europeans were literally sleeping through the night.”

Outgoing US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke criticising the EU's failure to act in the clash between Turkey and Greece over the islet of Imia.

“If we don't watch out, some German political leaders will one day say: 'Why should we worry about listening to the French and working towards European integration? If we have a European free trade zone of which we are masters and we have the deutschemark, we will be the people who will be the Americans' favourite partners and the necessary intermediaries with Russia.' On that day, you can say Europe will be finished and it will be the death of France.”

Former European Commission President Jacques Delors calling for closer cooperation between France and Germany's political leaders.

“This example shows that delaying currency union would be the end of it.”

Commission President Jacques Santer noting that hesitancy among European governments over a Western European defence union in the 1950s killed off the plan and warning the same could happen to EMU.

“I consider it basically a perverse idea to claim that a relaxation of the criteria would make our job easier. That would be the best way to choke off a single currency.”

French Prime Minister Alain Juppé rejecting suggestions that the conditions for entry into a single European currency should be eased.

“Yesterday's bomb attack in London is an outrage, but it must not be allowed to end the Northern Ireland peace process. Terrorism will not solve the conflict. Nobody could have expected negotiations to be easy, but they offer the only hope of a solution. Yesterday's explosion must not end the past 17 months of hope.”

European Commission President Jacques Santer's statement in the wake of the IRA bomb in London which left two people dead and over 100 injured.