A Quote by Alexis Tsipras

The insistence of European leaders to austerity policies keeps the European economy strapped in stagnation.

Alexis Tsipras

Quote Topics

Austerity Economy European Insistence Keeps Leaders Policies Stagnation Strapped

Quote Author

Alexis Tsipras
Greek - Politician
Born: July 28, 1974

The danger is not only that these austerity measures are killing the European economies but also that they threaten the very legitimacy of European democracies - not just directly by threatening the livelihoods of so many people and pushing the economy into a downward spiral, but also indirectly by undermining the legitimacy of the political system through this backdoor rewriting of the social contract.

Ha-Joon Chang

If the 'Athens Spring' - when the Greek people courageously rejected the catastrophic austerity conditions of the previous bailouts - has one lesson to teach, it is that Greece will recover only when the European Union makes the transition from 'We the states' to 'We the European people.'

Yanis Varoufakis

How can we later criticise other countries outside the European Union for adopting such measures to repress opponents when we are tolerating this inside the European Union with European citizens? Like me - I'm a European citizen.

Carles Puigdemont

European officials thought that austerity was part of what they called their 'convergence policies,' of trying to bring countries together. Instead, it actually made things worse. There's more inequality within countries and more disparity across countries.

Joseph Stiglitz

In the E.U., the initiation of policy comes from the European Commission - not the European parliament, the European Commission, an appointed body; a committee of 27 countries where everything is haggled away.

Steve Hilton

Greece and the Greek people have recently had to deal with the harshest consequences of the global and European economic crisis. As an economy and as a society, we have had to experience a program of disastrous austerity which made the problems more acute instead of resolving them.

Alexis Tsipras

The European community of values is unique: It combines democracy with the market economy, individual freedoms with social justice. How can we expect the U.S. or China to defend these values, this one-of-a-kind European balancing act that has developed over the course of decades?

Emmanuel Macron

European Union partners never said European Union partners're going to renege on any promises, European Union partners said that European Union partners promises concern a four-year parliamentary term, european Union partners will be spaced out in an optimal way, in a way that is in tune with our bargaining stance in Europe and also with the fiscal position of the Greek state.

Yanis Varoufakis

Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are.

Alexis Tsipras

To achieve effectiveness and legitimacy it is time to scrap the right of veto given to permanent members of the UN, or at least severely restrict its use. It is also time to either abandon the idea of permanent membership or broaden it to reflect the rise of non-Western states to the status of global leaders (e.g. Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa), and to downgrade European representation by either giving the European Union a single seat or rotating a European state among Germany, France, UK, and Italy.

Richard A. Falk

EU tech companies face massive global competitors from Silicon Valley and China. Our goal should be to create real European champions and not to focus on a narrow competition between European states. I strongly believe the European Union can help a lot there by promoting a homogeneous and startup-friendly framework that could help European digital champions to become truly global.

Axelle Lemaire

Look at the European Parliament. There are a lot of people who are looking for simplistic solutions, for - who are sort of preaching policies of - well, very unfriendly policies.

Angela Merkel

For years now, the fake European 'left' is trying to portray European citizens as victims of the US imperialism. It is even trying to make the world feel sorry for those European workers who do not get a fair deal from their governments! It is thoroughly absurd.

Andre Vltchek

foreign policy is about trying to project the European model, its values, its principles, to the outside world. But at the moment, the European model is not as fascinating and as attractive as it may have been a few years ago. We have to be aware of this and take it into account when we try to promote our European system.

Pierre Vimont

Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has helped Ireland to take its place as a European country with all the member states, including Britain. It has therefore helped the maturing of a good bilateral relationship with Britain, lifting part of the burden of history.