In this interview excerpt, Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup, discusses the prospects for Economic and Monetary Union and the conditions for its success.

In this interview excerpt, Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup, underlines the pioneering role played by Luxembourg in the establishment of European Economic and Monetary Union.

In this interview excerpt, Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup, describes two particularly difficult moments in his European career: the negotiations for the creation of the European Central Bank and the failure of the negotiations, during the Luxembourg Council Presidency in 2005, on the financing of the European Union budget for the period 2007–2013.

In this interview, Georges Berthoin, Head of the Delegation of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), then of the Commission of the European Communities to the United Kingdom until 1973, describes what took place during the meetings between the ECSC and the United Kingdom which were held in London and in Luxembourg in the latter half of the 1950s.

In this interview excerpt, Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup, gives a generally positive assessment of European integration and conveys an optimistic message for the future.

Interview with Enrique Barón Crespo, Spanish Member of Parliament (1977–1982), Minister for Transport, Communications and Tourism (1982–1985), Member of the European Parliament (1986–2009) and President of the European Parliament (1989–1992), carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 31 March 2011 in Madrid. The interview was conducted by Cristina Blanco Sío-López, a Researcher at the CVCE, and particularly focuses on the following subjects: the origins of his pro-European vocation; his participation in the democratic transition in Spain; the negotiations for Spain’s accession to the European Communities; his experience as President of the European Parliament; his analysis of the challenges and advances in the Constitutional Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon; the impact and significance of the successive enlargements of the European Union; the EU’s external relations; and Spain’s contributions to the European integration process

Interview with Willy Claes, Belgian Minister for Economic Affairs from 1973 to 1974, from 1977 to 1982 and from 1988 to 1992, Foreign Minister from 1992 to 1994 and Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) from 1994 to 1995, carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 21 October 2010 at Willy Claes’s home in Hasselt. The interview was conducted by Étienne Deschamps, a Researcher at the CVCE, and particularly focuses on the following subjects: the origins of his European commitment, the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Davignon Plan for industry, the organisation of European affairs in Belgium, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Party of European Socialists, European defence and NATO.

Interview with Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, a Member of the European Parliament from 1992 to 2011, a Member of the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights (1999–2000) and a Member of the Convention on the Future of Europe (2002–2003), carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 22 June 2011 at the European Parliament in Brussels. The interview was conducted by Cristina Blanco Sío-López, a Researcher at the CVCE, and particularly focuses on the following subjects: Méndez de Vigo’s European commitment, Spain and the European integration process, identity and the borders of the European project, the euro, the foreign policy of the European Union (EU), interinstitutional relations in the EU, the Constitutional Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon.

In this interview excerpt, Philippe de Schoutheete, Belgian Permanent Representative to the European Union from 1987 to 1997, discusses some aspects of the negotiations that led to the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden to the European Union on 1 January 1995, particularly the issue of the compatibility between neutrality and the common foreign and security policy.

In this interview excerpt, Philippe de Schoutheete, Belgian Permanent Representative to the European Union from 1987 to 1997, describes the reasons for the adoption of what became known as the Ioannina Compromise, named after an informal meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers on 29 March 1994 in Ioannina, Greece, during the accession negotiations that led to the fourth enlargement of the European Union.