I'm always quite amazed that people in Europe become unnerved when two institutions or two people have different views.

Angela Merkel did the right thing. Her decision and the extraordinary willingness of the German people to take in refugees conveyed an image of Germany that is still having positive repercussions today. Unfortunately, people in Germany are no longer seeing that.

I'm not deaf and the Commission isn't operating in a parallel world of legal texts.

My friendship with Martin [Schulz], by contrast, is completely different in that it goes far beyond politics.

It is not acceptable that European Union countries are divided into those who give and those who take.

Those who are saying that Mario Draghi is in the camp of those trying to push Greece outside the Euroarea, are wrong.

I was never presented with the details as far as the collective bargaining system is Greece. I am in favor of a normal system without giving the labour minister the right to extend the results to extend the result of the collective bargaining to the whole of the real economy. The government has to make sure that the results will not harm the situation of small and medium enterprises.