Emmanuel Macron wants to see changes in France and we support him in that. Macron has proven his courage by leading an election campaign friendly to Europe and reform against the majority opinion of the Socialist Party.

I don't want to interpret the pope's words, especially as I am one of those horrible people who fell away from the Roman church after Martin Luther.

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.

As a wheelchair user, you cant move about freely. Thats the only thing that bothers me a little. When Im in the Euro Group in Brussels, colleagues who want to talk to me have to come to me. But I hope they know that this has nothing to do with arrogance.

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.

The Pope was more critical of Christianity than Islam during his visit (to Bavaria). He said on several occasions that the secular world influenced by Christianity must face the idea that it may not be as attractive as it once was. The leaders of other faiths might also be well-advised to admonish their own now and then and not always direct their criticism at others.

At the moment we are facing a whole collection of difficult to forecast developments from the situation in China and the oil-price crash to the worrying news from some banks in Europe and the US. All of that is linked: Worldwide company debt is high and there is a lot of money in circulation. That is why necessary structural reforms are not being made.