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.

My mother's brother was killed while clearing mines in 1945. Those are things that mark your childhood and they help explain why we are so devoted to European unity.

The question of societal fairness is always pertinent.

Trump is the freely elected president of the U.S. and as such deserves respect.

Having a place to live is a fundamental right and the state must establish a framework that ensures that apartments are affordable.

We're at a historical juncture: A growing number of people are declaring what has been achieved over the past decades in Europe to be wrong. They want to return to the nation-state. Sometimes there is even a blood and soil rhetoric that for me is starkly reminiscent of the interwar years of the past century, whose demons we are still all too familiar with.

The membership survey was a great moment for inner-party democracy. We can't go back, nor do we want to. Our members are pouring their hearts into this campaign. But people don't join the Social Democrats party just to put up posters. They join because they want to help steer the party.