In all of my encounters with voters, I have repeatedly been confronted with two points of critique. First: You politicians are all the same! Second: You politicians may be speaking German, but we still don't understand you!

The ESM, the European Stability Mechanism, is not funded by Germany alone. Twenty-seven percent of the bailout package comes from Germany. Italy and France together cover a total of 38 percent. That's reality. It makes no sense to say that everyone wants to get at Germany's money.

The EU is an unique project that replaced war with peace, hate with solidarity. Overwhelming emotion for awarding of Nobel prize to EU

The construction of social housing and the attempt to support families seeking to buy their own homes are all projects from the 1960s and '70s. It all sounds old-fashioned, but it is actually completely modern.

I would have oriented myself in case of Donald Trump according to what former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said to then - U.S. President George W. Bush when the Americans launched a war that was in violation of international law. Schröder showed that a German chancellor can act in a clear and self-confident manner toward a U.S. president.

If cooperation among governments were the superior concept for progress in Europe, I'd be onboard immediately. But the problem is that cooperation isn't working.

Politics is a dynamic process. When I was a young man in the 1970s, Yasser Arafat had just perpetrated various terrorist attacks. Just a few years later, after I had entered European Parliament, the same Yasser Arafat was given the Nobel Peace Prize.