In professions where the criteria of professionalism, expertise, good manners and ethics apply, the gender aspect, i.e., whether a person is a man or woman, is not relevant at all. What is important is that citizens' confidence in politicians and the politics is strong enough to make politicians proud of their profession.

I have learned from my own experience that if you work hard you will succeed.

The examples of female success stories are important on the global scale, as they help to disseminate the idea of gender equality and to spread the roots for the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and democratic values among different cultures, societies and traditions.

The precondition of success and entry to the top politics is primarily one's will - that is, making one's own decisions, because it means having to leave your home or move your family, quit social networking and build new contacts, [since] central governments are seated in capitals.

For a small open economy that trades mostly with the euro zone it makes absolute sense to be part of the currency union. Our currency has already pegged to the euro since 2002. We don't have an independent monetary policy. We are regulated by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, but we are not able to reap all the profits. Our businesses want to save the transaction costs.

There is an English saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Women often become these tough ones.

While I am a lawyer by profession and have travelled to several countries, working and educating myself, I came from a rural background in a Third World country at a time when women were told what their place was and whose mothers enjoyed even less.