The land of unlimited opportunity was for me, for a long time, impossible to reach. The wall, barbed wire and the order to shoot at those who tried to leave limited my access to the free world.

The G7 and former G8 group has always viewed itself as a community of values, the annexation of Crimea, which is a blatant violation of the principles of international law, and the events in eastern Ukraine are serious violations of these common values.

Globalization - and I think we share this conviction - is that globalization needs to be shaped politically, it needs to be given a human face, but we cannot allow to fall back into plagued globalization times.

As a woman with strong opinions talking about technology and politics is not always welcome in Germany. Nope, it's more like having a great cheerleader team behind me. People who follow my journey know I have a slightly colorful personality. The rest skipped out long ago.

Ever since Germany was able to regain its unity, it is in an even stronger position to give its contribution to upholding this order to which we feel committed and for which particularly people in the German Democratic Republic stood out there on the streets to keep this up, to maintain this order.

We can't constantly explain to our voters that taxpayers have to be on the hook for certain risks, rather than those who make a lot of money taking those risks.

The question is: Would there be a market in Germany for certain types of employment if one were to allow the employed person to earn less than is necessary to maintain his standard of living?