If we want to make Europe stronger, then each country first has to ensure that it becomes stronger itself. This applies to Italy and France, and it applies to Germany as well. Subsequently, we in Europe need to discuss how we can improve the community. That is the correct order.

Europe has grown through crises. Each crisis also presents opportunities, and Europe has emerged stronger from each one. That is the way history unfolds. Europe is sometimes slow, and it reacts sluggishly, but it is capable of finding solutions.

I don't want to change Islam, but if there is to be a European Islam, it must incorporate European values.

We are facing a whole collection of crisis-like developments that we have to watch closely. But we also have to be careful what we point to as crisis indicators.

History shows us a lot of things. It shows why the Lord's Prayer includes the supplication: "And lead us not into temptation." In my day, dissertations were still written by hand, or drummed out with a typewriter. In the past, you had to round up the literature, find the books and find the passages. Nowadays you click on Wikipedia or Google and you have everything you need. This probably makes it more difficult to resist temptation.

It is clear to us that we will have to become more involved in our neighboring regions so that the migration pressures aren't so high there. Of course the budget negotiations will be difficult, as they always are.

I would caution against fueling cheap populism. First of all, every German who has spent a vacation in Greece knows that the standard of living there isn't higher than it is in Germany. Second, Greece is paying a high price for European assistance.