The significant collapse of oil prices shows that it was previously way too high.

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.

We will not be able to meet the challenges of integration and the threats posed by international terrorism. If we want to prevent attacks, we'll need more information and better integration.

Germany has always stood for an E.U. of the 27 countries. But in light of Britain's continued resistance to further integration steps, as we saw with the fiscal pact, there are limits to my optimism in this regard. It's quite possible that we will have to create the new institutions for the euro zone first.

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.

I think we will have to spend more on defense, for infrastructure, for extension of the broadband network and also for domestic security.

My job is not to predict everything that might happen in the future, but to address what we can do today.