If you say in advance there is going to be a main candidate and then that doesn't count later, then that's going to be a highly problematic occurrence in a democracy.

I am strictly against making cuts in the current budgetary period for things such as research funding and investments as a reaction to Brexit. I think that we can do an excellent job of explaining this to the German people.

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.

We won't get any growth in Greece by just imposing cuts. What I would prefer is a special economic zone for Greece.

Gerhard Schröder offered a clear German NEIN to an American president's war of aggression that was in violation of international law. That took courage. Ms. Merkel did not join him at the time. If Trump now begins to take the wrecking ball to our set of values, we must say clearly: That is not our approach.

The question of societal fairness is always pertinent.

The stubborn stance of some European governments on the refugee question is a reprisal less aimed at Angela Merkel or (Vice Chancellor) Sigmar Gabriel than at certain people on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin.