Germany is not a fair country. Millions of people believe that things aren't fair in this country. Company profits and bonus payments have increased at the same rate as precarious employment situations.

You can be sure that I won't experiment with right-wing terms.

European policy is always an interplay of rationality and emotion.

[Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an adherent of realpolitik. He knows that international relations are not built on the strength of unilateral demands, but on solutions that are in everybody's best interest.

The question of societal fairness is always pertinent.

We agree: Brussels can't regulate everything. I'm driven by something else: There are forces in Europe that want to generally give national policy priority over a common European approach. We have to prevent this.

I am strictly against making cuts in the current budgetary period for things such as research funding and investments as a reaction to Brexit. I think that we can do an excellent job of explaining this to the German people.