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.

You have to let the people vote when it comes to a new constitution.

Primary responsibility for Brexit lies with British conservatives, who took an entire continent hostage.

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.

The problem with us EU politicians is that we approach everything with cool rationality, and then wonder why we don't win people over emotionally.

It is impossible to swear an oath to the German Basic Law without realizing that our constitution is among the most liberal constitutions in the world. As the head of government in such a country, I would stand up to all those who call into question this free, open and tolerant model of society.

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.