Rules, but a vision above all

English translation by Notre Europe of an interview of Jacques Delors by Renaud Dehousse for Il Mulino recorded on 3 July 2012 and published in the July-August 2012 edition of the journal.

Jacques Delors offers his vision of today's Europe. He analyses measures taken by political leaders to put an end to the financial, economic and political crisis that Europe is being dealing with. According to him, 'the rules will reach their limits and will not be able to replace a clear vision of what we want to do together'.

He then favours a new institutional set-up that should be offered to the deliberation of the peoples of Europe. In the context of the forthcoming European Parliament elections in 2014, he suggests that European parties could agree on a project for Europe with a 'Federation of Nation States'.

He advocates furthermore a strengthening of parliamentary debates at national level so that citizens have the feeling to influence more the choices which are made in Europe.

He also thinks that the current 'greater Europe' will not be able to have ambitions as great as those cherished from the 50s to the 80s; hence the need for differentiation to let the driving forces for growth work in domains such as Schengen, the Euro and perhaps defence.