I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious ... I am for secret, dark debates.

I put my money on Brexit. The EU Financial Stability Commissioner, Jonathan Hill from Britain, still owes me a pound.

We must go back to teach Europeans to love Europe.

Much as I would have liked to respond factually and truthfully to each and every piece of misinformation spread by the Brexit campaign, it was important that I stayed out of the domestic political debate. It was David Cameron's task to win the UK referendum, not ours.

I am in favor of the European institutions being led for the next two-and-a-half years as they have been thus far. We need stability.

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 don't think in national categories. For me it [policy] is about concepts and substance.