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.

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.

In the business of politics, emotions and productive dissatisfaction with the world in which we live today are gradually being covered up by the minutiae of ordinary life.

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

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.

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.

Real life is happening outside and not in front of a computer.