As a party of labor, the SPD must work together with the unions to ensure that people can make a living with their work. That is why I am not a proponent of the concept of unconditional basic income. I am, however, very much in favor of decent wage agreements, secure and lasting jobs, employee participation in decision-making and the examination of the social justification for claims and payments.

We have to engage in a dialogue with Donald Trump because he is the elected president of the United States of America. But we have to emphatically oppose his foreign policy ideas.

Gerhard Schröder offered a clear German NEIN to an American president's war of aggression that was in violation of international law. That took courage. Ms. Merkel did not join him at the time. If Trump now begins to take the wrecking ball to our set of values, we must say clearly: That is not our approach.

If we want to create new rules of globalization, then we can't just think in terms of the nation state. The nation state has long offered protection. But it suffers from the fact that many citizens increasingly fear that it can no longer protect them: The threat of transnational terrorism is growing. Freedom of movement rules in Europe facilitate social dumping. Regardless of the make-up of the next government, it must have clear ideas on how to overcome the lack of direction of recent years.

Ms. Merkel is avoiding retirement issues. She simply doesn't want to do anything, although she knows that doing nothing means that real pensions will fall. That is preprogrammed old-age poverty. When it comes to wage fairness: It was Ms. Merkel herself who blocked the establishment of a right to return to a fulltime job after going part time for a period. Yet everyone keeps saying that our platform is identical to that of the conservatives. It's crazy.

CDU head Angela Merkel has tried for years to serve two sides: the conservative side by holding up her CDU party membership. But then at the same time she acts as though she were also a Social Democrat. I don't have this hydra-headed nature. In the end, people will vote for the Social Democratic original.

Would I sacrifice a friendship to take a step forward in my political career? Thus far in my political career, I have been spared from having to make such a decision, thank God. And I can't imagine what it must be like.