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.

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 need a big debate in society about how we are going to shape Europe and tame capitalism. A government must provide direction and make concrete proposals. It is one of Angela Merkel's biggest failings that she doesn't do this.

We have to engage in a dialogue with Donald Trump because he is the elected president of the United States of America. But we have to emphatically oppose his foreign policy ideas.

I know people's problems: the problems of those who work hard, who must slave away. The couples who have two incomes but who can nevertheless barely cover their rent. The people who get stuck in traffic on their way to work. The people who have to wait in vain for a train to come just as they are supposed to be picking up their children from daycare. I can say with a clear conscience to those people: I understand your problems. And I will do all I can to decrease them.

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.

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