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.

When you think back today to a time more than 70 years ago when Germany was a terrible place, a place people were afraid of, it is a wonderful development that we have gone from being a terrible place to a place that people dream of.

A major danger for us Europeans: We must demonstrate that those who have this view of us are mistaken, that we can come to agreement, that we as a community of democratic and free nations are economically successful and are gaining political influence. To do so, we must learn to project our power.

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.

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.

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.

I hope Gunter Grass will continue helping the SPD in campaigns and that he will otherwise remain with us as a provocative literary figure, as well.