If we no longer judge the content of people's actions, but merely their form, then we are entering dangerous times indeed.

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 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.

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.

The Social Democrats have to listen to people who are attracted to the AfD party. That isn't a mistake at all. You can also win them back. Of course, there are a lot of angry voters who are ideologically charged. But there are also a lot of quieter voters who plan on voting AfD to send a message. We can never give up on them.

I firmly believe that the inequity [in society] is enormous. The people have the feeling that you are allowed to do anything if you are rich. But if you're poor, you have to pay. We [Europeans] have to counter 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.