I hope that a German foreign policy in 2028 will be part of a European foreign policy, because even the strong country of Germany won't really have a voice in the world if it is not part of a European voice.

Madame Merkel knows very well that her conservative Christian Democratic Union or CDU, and the CSU, the Bavarian sister party to the CDU, with which it shares power nationally, must change their European policies. The FDP's nationalist-liberal position on Europe is presumably one of the reasons the attempt failed to form a Jamaica coalition government which would have seen the CDU, FDP and Green Party govern together.

The claim that democracy and efficiency are contradictory is nonsense. That's evident in the history of democracy itself, because it is only democrats who were and continue to be capable of learning from mistakes. A more appropriate question is to ask whether a country like China, which has been so incredibly successful economically, is actually inefficient in light of its environmental destruction and its corruption. In China's perception, however, the democratic model is doubtlessly inferior.

The production of natural resources in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, stable natural hydrological cycles, fertile soils, a balanced climate and numerous other vital ecosystem services can only be permanently secured through the protection and sustainable use of biological diversity.

Those who reject integration programs in the long term have as little right to stay in Germany as a hate preacher paid from abroad in a mosque.

However, I have a low opinion of people with narrow political horizons. Someone who talks about the environment and knows nothing about economics can make as many mistakes as someone who does the opposite.

Taming the financial markets and winning back democratic control over them is the central condition for creating a new social balance in Germany and Europe.