"On the basis of repeated meetings with him and of an attentive observation of his actions, I think that if in his own way W.Hallstein (ed: first President of the European Commission) is a sincere"European", this is only because he is first of all an ambitious German. For the Europe that he would like to see would contain a framework within which his country could find once again and without cost the respectability and equality of rights that Hitler's frenzy and defeat caused it to lose; then acquire the overwhelming weight that will follow from its economic capacity; and, finally, achieve a situation in which its quarrels concerning its boundaries and its unification will be assumed by a powerful coalition." ~President Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, 1970 ~