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.

In 2003, Helmut Schmidt said: Predatory capitalism exists, we have to civilize it and we can do that via Europe. He was right. We haven't tried hard enough.

We need economic growth in Europe and we need to find a solution for the excessive interest rates that are making it difficult for many countries to get their own debt under control.

Ms. Merkel's attempt to present herself as a Social Democrat was a clever move. But it's not working anymore. The divisions between the CDU and CSU have simply become too great for that.

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.

Imagine a German as president of the European Commission. If he or she goes to some particular country and says do this or that, it won't be very well received. The president quickly ends up being the evil German. But if the president is elected by and controlled by 700 representatives from all EU countries, that legitimizes him or her in a very different way.

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.