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.

France is ready for a European revolution and it is Germany that is pulling the brakes. For a long time, it was the other way around. You don't have to agree with the details of every single one of Emmanuel Macron's suggestions, but he's right about the idea of a new foundation of Europe. Europe's Social Democrats have long demanded this. If we really want to, we can create a different, better Europe in the coming years.

I have friends in politics who really put the friendship to the test through their behavior.

The principles of the SPD have remained the same for 150 years: democracy, human dignity, justice and inclusion. We will never change those principles.

It was a Russian airplane that was bombed over the Sinai Peninsula. When the Russians conduct air strikes on IS, they are doing so because they too are threatened by terror.

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.

We are in the middle of a tough, ideological conflict that is being waged across the entire continent. On the one side are those who say that global challenges like migration and terror cannot be met with national parochialism. On the other side are those who would like to see a renaissance of the nation-state.