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.

I'm a firm believer in the monetary union.

We in Europe need to discuss how we can improve the community. That is the correct order.

The United States lived on borrowed money for too long, inflating its financial sector unnecessarily and neglecting its small and mid-sized industrial companies.

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.

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.

I suggested that countries with tighter finances think about such a [fuel] tax. We don't have the time at the moment for months of discussion.