The head of Europe’s Liberals, Guy Verhofstadt has launched his campaign for the upcoming European parliamentary elections.

The former Belgian Prime Minister’s conviction never waivers – Europe, and more of it, is the one sure way out of the financial crisis: “What we have to do is learn from Jacques Delors,” said Verhofstadt at his campaign press conference, “Jacques Delors launched the internal market and that created growth for ten years in Europe! We can do exactly the same, we need to do exactly the same!”

According to Verhofstadt:“banking costs are going down, interest rates are going down, energy prices are going down. That’s the way to emerge from the crisis, not by making new debts. I think that’s an old recipe that no longer works.”

Verhofstadt’s recipe is light touch regulation for the first course, and lashings of harmonisation and common European policies for the second: “We have too much regulation in the internal market in Europe,” he said. “On the other hand we don’t have enough common policies, for example energy policies. We have still 28 different energy policies with high energy prices. So by having one European energy community this prices should go down.”

Verhofstadt will be hoping this campaign launch will whet the appetites of Europe’s voters for his brand of liberal federalism.