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.

Maybe it is the last chance for Europe to influence standards for world trade. Next it will be between the US and the Asia-Pacific region.

It is clear that Germany needs a foreign policy in which we jointly define European interests. Thus far, we have often defined European values, but we have been much too weak in defining mutual interests. To preempt any possible misunderstandings: We cannot give short shrift to our values of freedom, democracy and human rights.

Economically and politically, Germany is extremely stable. There are countries with functioning governments whose institutions don't work. My only concern is about Europe. There's a risk we will run out of time. We have been blessed with a pro-European French president, but we are also approaching the next elections for the European Parliament in 2019, and it will be important for pro-European parties present a credible answer to the anti-Europeans on the left and the right.

Less and less is the question being asked as to whether developments are taking place in a democratic and free way. Europe is in a phase in which this output is no longer sufficiently visible or tangible. Youth unemployment is still far too high, we still haven't solved our currency problem and living conditions in Europe are drifting apart. That is one reason why critics say that our Europe is based on yesteryear's model.

The task for Germany today is - through its own policies and its own structural reforms, its own investments - to support the EU and the Commission... but every nation has to have the courage to broach such structural reforms and speak clearly about them without making people be afraid.

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