When the going gets tough, you have to lie.

Between now and then, after 43 years of European marriage, the whole body of legislation will therefore have to be disentangled. That entails a whole range of specific and very complex questions: what will be the future legal status of the millions of EU citizens in the UK and the millions of Britons on the continent?

The way some German politicians have lashed out at Greece when the country fell into the crisis has left deep wounds there. I was just as shocked by the banners of protesters in Athens that showed the German chancellor in a Nazi uniform.

There can be no doubt that, with the United Kingdom, we will lose a very market-oriented voice.

There is a proposal to divide the currency zone into a north and a south euro. There is also the idea of setting up a core monetary union in the middle of Europe. I disapprove of these debates. Instead, we should devote all of our efforts to supplementing the monetary union with a political union.

Many in Germany are saying that Macron should be helped. That's also how I see it. But Germany cannot solve France's problems. The French president and his government will have to seriously knuckle down in order to pull France out of its slump.

I said in my inaugural address that I am not the Council's secretary, nor am I the Parliament's lackey. That can sometimes lead to conflicts, which are defused through dialogue.