The idea that the growing demand for energy worldwide can be met with energy from nuclear power is nonsense.

Iran is the only country in the world that's threatening to erase another country from the map as part of a collective genocide.

The truth is that we have long had a multi-track Europe with very different objectives. The traditional differences between the north and the south in fiscal and economic policy are far less problematic than those that exist between Eastern and Western Europe. In the south and east, China is steadily gaining more influence, such that a few EU member states no longer dare to make decisions that run counter to Chinese interests. You see it everywhere: China is the only country in the world that has a real geopolitical strategy.

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.

I am certain that the United States next year, under a new president - regardless whether it's Obama or McCain - will present an ambitious program promoting renewable energies and energy efficiency. Europe could quickly fall behind.

We, the Social Democrats, are convinced that capitalism needs to be tamed a second time. The first time we achieved that in Germany for many decades with the social market economy. That is no longer enough. Now we need to do it in Europe and even globally.

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