Alexandroupoli, 22/03/2013 Check against delivery Chair, Dear Friends, Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address your congress on behalf of the European trade union confederation. Your country, Greek citizens, Greek workers in recent years and recent months have been going through an extraordinary painful process. Cuts in wages, cuts in pensions, cuts in social provisions, attacks on industrial relations, on collective bargaining, selling of public assets, political uncertainty,

Brussels, 01/02/2013 Check against delivery Dear chair, ladies and gentlemen and friends. I would like to thank the chair for giving me the floor and for organising this meeting. Despite much reticence among ETUC members regarding the desirability of a European level tripartite discussion on wage developments, the ETUC agreed that we should participate in this exploratory meeting.

Madrid, 28/01/2013 I want to thank, very warmly, all the high level representatives of EU institutions, the politicians who honored ETUC with their presence and comments, and to also thank, very warmly, all the high level trade unionists from the various countries and the members in this room for discussing, for listening to the problems that we, as a trade union, are facing.

Larnaca, 04-05 octobre 2012 Seul le texte prononcé fait foi

Brussels, 15/10/2012 EUROPE MUST ADDRESS ITS SOCIAL DEBT The debt crisis and how to get out of it is being discussed everywhere. And so it should. But there is a social debt which is just as central to save Europe as the monetary debt.

Brighton, 10/09/2012 President, Delegates, I am honoured and delighted to address your Congress on behalf of the European Trade Union Confederation. I am a first time speaker to Congress. In previous congresses the ETUC GS delivered his speech with a Manchester accent. Today, you will have to adapt to a southern French way of handling your language. Whatever the accent your campaign call: 'A Future That Works' certainly reflects the aspiration of the workers I meet.

Krynica, 04/09/2012 (Check against delivery) I. Opening panel President, I thank you for inviting me to speak at this opening ceremony. It is important that you invited me as General Secretary of the ETUC representing 60 million workers in the European unions. Workers, and around them, their family.

Stockholm, 25-28/05/2012 The invitation to contribute to this celebratory anthology of the LO prompted me to discuss my vision for a European future from a trade union perspective that takes into account matters dear to my heart and emphasizes Social Europe.

Killarney, 06/07/2011 President, General Secretary, Dear friends, brothers and sisters trade unionists, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to address Congress today as the newly elected General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation taking over from John Monks, the first woman in that position. I would like here to thank ICTU for supporting my candidature. So you will have to adjust from John’s Manchester sounding English to a definitely French-English tone.

Duisburg, 06/06/2011 President, Peter, delegates, friends, I am delighted to be invited to address your Congress today. I bring you the warm and fraternal greetings of the European Trade Union Confederation. I was elected 3 weeks ago – with your support – I thank you for this support. It is of great value and significance to me. Indeed, you are meeting at a very critical time for Europe. Europe is in the midst of daunting financial, monetary, economic and social crises.

Tampere, 06/06/2011 President, Friends, I am grateful to be given the opportunity to speak to the SAK congress. It is the first time I address a congress as ETUC General Secretary. Our congress finished two weeks ago. I feel still quite new in the job…although I had a few months to get prepared. I would at first thank you most warmly for nominating me as your candidate and supporting me during the election process.

Athens, 18/05/2011

Athènes, 19/05/2011 President, Wanja, John. First let me thank delegates for their vote and support to the next team. It is a great honour and a tremendous responsibility to serve the European Trade Union Confederation as its General Secretary. Being the first woman in that position makes it even more significant. It is a great honour and a tremendous responsibility to serve the European Trade Union Confederation as its General Secretary.

Athens, 16/05/2011 Delegates, distinguish guest, dear friends you are all very much welcome to the 12th congress of the ETUC. The congress is taking place against a background of economic and political turmoil. The financial and economic crisis has hit many of our members severely, not least in Greece. By organising the congress in Athens, we are demonstrating our support for and solidarity with Greek trade unions.

Athens, 16/05/2011 You heard this morning about the problems we have firstly with the bail out packages of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania, and, second, about the Euro Plus Pact which will enter into general force in the eurozone, plus six other countries, in 2013. The matter of central concern in this Pact is the extent to which it will affect wages and collective bargaining.

London, 26/03/2011 Friends, brothers and sisters, I am bringing to you all the warm & fraternal greetings of the European trade union confederation & the 60 million workers behind it. In London today/ in Berlin, Brussels, Riga, Madrid last week, in Budapest soon, workers & their families citizens of Europe are marching the streets for an alternative. You marched the streets & the European workers marched the streets of London with you for social justice & fairness. You want, need & deserve jobs, good jobs.

Dublin, 19/01/2011 Thanks for the invitation to come back a second time to the IIEA. Last time, we were talking about referendums and treaties and the reasons for Ireland to vote yes to a European future. As someone who believes strongly in a European future, I am only grateful that Ireland does not have to have a referendum on Europe now, in relation to the current crisis. In fact, Ireland has had a great deal of support from the EU especially the liquidity funding from the ECB, but it is also taking heavy punishment from the EU and IMF.

Brussels, 16/11/2010 President, colleagues, there is an old Irish joke that when a tourist asked a local the best way to Cork, the reply was “you don’t want to start from here”.

London, 11/11/2010 My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow Lord Hannay in debate on diplomatic questions because of his immense knowledge and impressive experience of the world of diplomacy; but it is daunting too in that he is a hard act to follow. I myself lay claim to some experience, if not expertise, in this field. I work currently in Brussels as General Secretary of the European TUC. And the UK Representation there, inelegantly called UKREP, is generally admired as the classiest operation around town, even by the French!

Wroclaw, 22/10/2010 Janusz, friends, it is a pleasure to return to the Congress of Solidarnosc. Much has happened since my last visit to you in Szczecin. The world economy has had a heart attack, not fatal, not like the heart attack which killed Communism. But one which has inflicted great pain and suffering on most countries, and has exposed weaknesses in the construction of the European Union.

Manchester, 15/09/2010 President, delegates, fellow guests. It’s been seven years since I moved to the ETUC, and left the TUC in the very capable hands of Brendan. Brendan has done one thing I never managed – bringing Congress back to Manchester, the TUC’s – and my – home town. There is of course a rich history of working class struggles round here besides the original TUC – the first factories, the origins of many of today’s unions, Friedrich Engels, co-ops, the Pankhursts.

Ljubljana, 01/09/2010 It is always a pleasure to visit this beautiful corner of Europe – one of the best examples of trade union co-operation across national borders anywhere in the European Union. It was not always like that round here. Armies have criss-crossed these lands for centuries. Guns and tramping soldiers have come and gone in streets and boulevards. The ghosts of the fallen still call to us with the message “never again must the peoples of Europe turn again to war as a solution.”

Brussels, 07/07/2010 Thank you for the invitation to come along today with my trade union and social partner colleagues. This is an important moment. It’s the worst economic crisis in Western Europe since the Second World War - I do recognise that there have been worse crises in Eastern Europe. The stimulus packages are being withdrawn, austerity is a near universal European fashion, and the fragile recovery is at risk. Governments are following the example of their predecessors in the 1930s.

Geneva, 14/06/2010 I take the floor to alert this conference to two key European developments. The first concerns the economic crisis. In 2007/8 the leaders of the world avoided the grave errors of their predecessors in 1931. They did not all cut public expenditure at the same time, unlike the President Hoover generation of leaders. Indeed, many introduced stimuli packages. Those actions led to the crisis not descending into a repeat of the Great Depression.

Berlin, 18/05/2010 President, delegates, Your time is precious. My speaking time is limited. So I will limit my intervention to the essentials. The global casino is turning at maximum. Financial markets seem to drive politics. The turmoil on these markets, the high speed speculation against the European currency, the uncontrolled power of rating agencies – all this is constantly threatening our European cohesion, our social fundamentals, our social model, the social market economy.