DIFFERENT VOICES

Date: 13/03/1997

“A fully robust and fully operational single market is the main vehicle for economic union, and therefore a fundamental pillar of EMU ... I must insist that member states should show the same degree of commitment vis-à-vis market integration as they do in trying to meet the single currency convergence criteria.”

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti outlining plans for an action programme to complete the single market by the 1 January 1999 deadline for a single currency and calling on member states to commit themselves to achieving it.

“I declare war on all the pessimists who think the criteria will not be fulfilled. There is a date; there is a commitment. I expect the member states to stand by that commitment.”

Commission President Jacques Santer in a speech setting out his vision for the EU's future.

“The Albanian crisis is a classic European crisis of the post-Cold War era - too far from the United States for the US to take an immediate interest, too close to Europe for us to ignore it.”

Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini warning that the unrest in Albania had underlined the EU's lack of preparation for crises on its doorstep.

“It is important for the stability of the Union, that is to say for the stability of the whole of Europe, that the Turks retain a European prospect, even if we know that membership would not be realistic in the short term.”

French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier distancing himself from the statement by European Christian Democrat leaders last week that Turkey stood no chance of being admitted into the EU.

“I should try to make sure they only went ahead in the right circumstances. If they were likely to do so in the wrong circumstances, it is in the British interest to stop them doing so.”

UK Prime Minister John Major warning that he would be prepared to vote against other EU countries joining a single currency if they proposed to do so without being ready.