In political life, it is extremely difficult to remain loyal to a friendship when constellations of power or interests are in the way.

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.

Donald Trump has made the principle of purposely breaking a taboo into a means of achieving his political objectives, which is something that he has in common with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Trump systematically violates international rules. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget that Trump is not the U.S.

It's not attractive at the moment to vouch for the European idea. I still do it, because I believe nothing would be better for our continent.

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.

We are living through an epochal shift. If we aren't careful, the elementary foundations of our pluralistic democracy will be threatened.

Particularly in periods of crisis, governments have the obligation to lead by good example! Instead, many in Europe are confronting this global challenge with a penny-pinching mentality that drives me crazy.