UN General Assembly
1972

66. The meeting of the heads of State and Government of the nine countries of the expanded European Economic Community, which will take place in Paris in two weeks, will, I hope, lay down the essential guide-lines for the future of the Community and will, I am sure, give a decisive impetus towards increasing unification which can never be synonymous in our minds with falling back upon oneself, but, on the contrary, means opening towards the outside world. If Europe is to have greater weight, it will have to shoulder even more clearly its responsibility, first vis-a-vis the developing countries, but also vis-a-vis other industrialized countries. A Community which is the greatest commercial power in the world, even if it is not the least fragile, has the right, indeed the duty, to affirm its own identity and to deal on a footing of equality with the other industrialized States concerning economic, commercial and monetary problems without there being any question of any prior conditions either way, and this with the sole purpose of reaching settlements satisfactory to all the countries concerned.