Only our own strength, a strong conservative party, can prevent Red-Red-Green from taking power at the federal level in 2017.

First, we need good, stable relations with Russia. Second, we must make every effort to save energy and focus on using various sources to meet our energy needs. We must not allow ourselves to become dependent.

For my part, in everything I do, I aim to strengthen democracy in Germany and beyond. The United States is also a strong democracy. As we are seeing in Poland, for example, and also in Hungary, it is important that we have counterweights in democratic systems, and I believe they are still strong in America.

The full veil is not appropriate for Germans, and should be banned wherever legally possible.

I fortunately know very many people, and there are many, many more that I don't know and many politicians who stand up for the same values of democracy of liberal societies, of open societies of respect for the dignity of man.

To exclude groups of people because of their faith, this isn't worthy of the free state in which we live. It isn't compatible with our essential values. And its humanly reprehensible, xenophobia, racism, extremism have no place here. We are fighting to ensure that they don't have a place elsewhere either.

A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.