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.

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

Trying to keep a society together, trying to keep the older and the younger people together, trying to keep those who live in rural areas together with those who live in cities is one of the most important and most noble tasks of politicians these days.

Alliances are part of our destiny as a nation, part of our future as a nation and this is what guides me in my policy, what guides my government as a whole.

I never underestimated myself. And I never saw anything wrong with ambition.

Global climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century.

It is a fact that, if I single out Germany, our rate of growth is too low and we have very high unemployment.