The shadow of an exit of Greece from the euro zone takes on ever clearer shape, repeated apparently final attempts to reach a deal are starting to make the whole process look ridiculous. There is an ever greater number of people who feel as if the Greek government is giving them the run-around.

The shadow of an exit of Greece from the euro zone takes on ever clearer shape, repeated apparently final attempts to reach a deal are starting to make the whole process look ridiculous. There is an ever greater number of people who feel as if the Greek government is giving them the run-around.

But, as environment minister, I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry, because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes.

Besides Germany, the only countries that don't have speed limits are places like Nepal, where road conditions are so bad that a limit would be beside the point. In other words, it's a little crazy that this is even a topic for debate in Germany.

My office has a view of low-cost housing, old East German prefabricated apartment buildings. It isn't an attractive view, but it's very helpful, because it reminds me to ask myself, whenever there is a decision to be made, whether the people who live there can afford our decisions.

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.

Climate protection creates sustainability and jobs in the real economy - in construction, in the production of heavy machinery and in systems engineering.