Dutch pol: Europe “too slow” on refugees, Greece; deeper EU integration needed

D66 leader Alexander Pechtold completely agrees with European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker's sentiment that there is not enough cooperation in the European Union. According to him Europe moves "too slow, too little, with too small steps" in solving issues like the refugee crisis and the Greek debt crisis.

The D66 leader said this in an interview with BNR on Tuesday. "You saw it with the Greek crisis, dozens of summits with heads of governments, too slow, too little, too small steps, allowing the problems to grow. You see it now again with the refugees, you will see it immediately on climate change." Pechtold said. "It is not too much Europe, it is too little Europe. If we want to collectively make the economy stronger and keep it strong, more cooperation is needed. We can. We have proven it",

According to him, the only way to handle this is by delegating certain issues to be handled at a continental level and continue regulating other matters at national level. "Some people shy away from that, but it is my political mission to get awareness through.

"Solving problems will always go in phases. But look how far we have come." Pechtold said that in his almost 50 years of life he has lived through half of the 28 euro countries being under communist dictatorships. "In my life the colonels in Greece were still in power.  There was a dictatorship in Spain, now we can hardly even imagine it. But we fought against all of that, we coped with thous problems.