To be serious, if we were only interested in earning big money then a politician would have to go and work in industry.

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.

We need trust among allies and partners. Such trust now has to be built anew.

Neither the chains of dictatorship nor the fetters of oppression can keep down the forces of freedom for long.

The fact that people have hijacked it is certainly not something that fills me with great joy. We have to find new ways of addressing people, new ways of getting into contact with people.

It seems to me that the fact that I am a woman is a bigger issue than the fact that I'm from the East. For me it isn't really important. I've only ever known myself as a woman.

What do you do when other countries' intelligence agencies give you information and you aren't entirely certain about its source? Simply ignore it? That's impossible. We have a duty to guarantee the safety of our citizens.