When we were negotiating the ongoing financial period in 2013, I talked myself hoarse. London and Berlin in particular insisted on reducing the budget. So we - to the applause of German journalists - made cuts to central future-oriented areas and slashed the budget for development aid, research and technology.

I'm fully aware that my vision of a European bicameral parliament can't be implemented tomorrow. I'm also not an integration fanatic.

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.

Trump believes politics is a staged fight. But it is not. Still, clear words are sometimes needed in politics. In that sense, I believe I am better than Mrs. Merkel.

We need a common European tax policy that closes these tax loopholes. We need a common European social policy that prevents social dumping. We need an effective securing of our external borders and a smart way of fighting terrorism. Acting as a state within a national framework is no longer enough. The German chancellor has completely failed to convey that throughout her years in power. We need a re-start for Europe.

Having a place to live is a fundamental right and the state must establish a framework that ensures that apartments are affordable.

We're at a historical juncture: A growing number of people are declaring what has been achieved over the past decades in Europe to be wrong. They want to return to the nation-state. Sometimes there is even a blood and soil rhetoric that for me is starkly reminiscent of the interwar years of the past century, whose demons we are still all too familiar with.