If you make the state responsible for everything, you shouldn't be surprised when you end up with a state that bears some resemblance to a dictatorship.

Our balanced budget has an important psychological function. It is a signal that we can't continue to constantly take on debt.

I don't know how many resolutions from the IMF or G-20 we have already written saying that such [financial] reforms are necessary for new growth.

If the Schengen system (of border-free travel) is destroyed, Europe will be seriously endangered politically and economically. That is why we Europeans have to invest billions in Turkey, Libya, Jordan and other countries in the region as quickly as possible everybody as much as they can.

In the EU, we agree that the pressures causing migration must be reduced.

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.

Most of the mosques were built in our cities in recent years because Turkish citizens in those neighborhoods feel a growing need for places to pray.