When a man ends up in the White House who boasts about not having a clue and who says that specialist knowledge is elite nonsense, then a critical point has been reached. Then you will have an obviously irresponsible man sitting in a position that requires the utmost degree of responsibility.

We agree: Brussels can't regulate everything. I'm driven by something else: There are forces in Europe that want to generally give national policy priority over a common European approach. We have to prevent this.

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.

I still hope that the American system of checks and balances will ultimately prevent this man, Donald Trump, with his erratic political style, from jeopardizing our European security architecture.

If we want to strengthen the EU, then we urgently need a two-pronged approach. First, we can save a lot of money if we finally move to harness synergy effects in military spending. The parallel structures in the individual armies still remain far too costly, and we could save a lot by making joint purchases. Second, we cannot only think in terms of conventional military logic, but instead have to be far better prepared to thwart cyberattacks. Most importantly, we can no longer allow the EU to become bogged down in petty details.

For many people, politics in Brussels and Strasbourg might as well be happening on another planet.

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.