I want to end tax dumping. States that have a common currency should not be engaged in tax competition. We need a minimum tax rate and a European finance minister, who would be responsible for closing the tax loopholes and getting rid of the tax havens inside and outside the EU. It is also clear that we have to reach common standards in our economic and labor policies. We cannot continue to just talk about technical details. We have to inspire enthusiasm in Germany for Europe.

Refugees cost us money too when they come to us. If we improve their living conditions in Turkey, we create an incentive for them to stay there and not to place their fates in the hands of smugglers.

Many who have voted for the AfD, or who intend to do so, aren't doing so because they are dyed-in-the-wool enemies of democracy. Rather, they are desperate.

We must now, in the 21st century, protect democracy, one which rests on fundamental rights for all, regardless of skin color, gender, race or religion. Nothing less than that is at stake.

I cannot guarantee people absolute fairness. I can only promise that I will do everything in my power to secure fairness or create a greater degree of fairness.

Imagine a German as president of the European Commission. If he or she goes to some particular country and says do this or that, it won't be very well received. The president quickly ends up being the evil German. But if the president is elected by and controlled by 700 representatives from all EU countries, that legitimizes him or her in a very different way.

Britain, Europe's second largest economy, a member of the G-7 and the UN Security Council, wants to leave the EU. That weakens us and it weakens Britain.