Angela Merkel.

Spying Among Friends Is Never Acceptable.

Whoever Decides to Dedicate Their Life to Politics Knows That Earning Money Isn’t the Top Priority.

Above All It Is Important to Point Out That We Can Only Maintain Our Prosperity in Europe If We Belong to the Most Innovative Regions in the World.

The Problem Is, of Course, That These Interest Groups Are All Asking for Changes, but Their Enthusiasm for Change Rapidly Disappears When It Affects the Core of Their Own Interests.

It Is Nonsense to Say That Germans Are Unable to Change.

Politicians Have to Be Committed to People in Equal Measures.

I Feel Sorry Sometimes for These Sportsmen and Women Who Put in Just as Much Effort as the Footballers. for Example, Athletes Train at Least as Hard as Footballers but Have to Be Happy If They Can Earn Enough to Finance a Decent Education.

Today’s Russia Is Not to Be Compared with the Soviet Union of Back Then.

We Feel Bound to the Christian Image of Humanity That Is What Defines Us. Those Who Do Not Accept This Are in the Wrong Place Here.

Let Me Say This on a Personal Note. Without the United States of America, I Would in All Probably Not Be Able to Stand Here Before You Today.

At the Beginning of the 60’S Our Country Called the Foreign Workers to Come to Germany and Now They Live in Our Country. We Kidded Ourselves a While, We Said: ‘They Won’t Stay, Sometime They Will Be Gone.’ but This Isn’t Reality.

If We Remind Ourselves of the Fact That Every Fifth American Today Rightly Points and Perhaps Also with a Certain Degree of Pride to His German Ancestry or Her German Ancestry, We Can Safely Say That We, Indeed, Share Common Roots.

The Euro Is Our Common Fate, and Europe Is Our Common Future.

In the German Football Team Players from Different Clubs Need to Get on with Each Other Both on and off the Pitch. in the Grand Coalition Christian Democrats and Social Democrats Sit in the Same Boat and Need to Pull in the Same Direction.

It Will Not Be Possible to Solve the Current Crisis with Euro Bonds.

For a Few Years, More People Have Been Leaving Our Country Than Entering It. Wherever It Is Possible, We Must Lower the Entry Hurdles for Those Who Bring the Country Forward.

I Felt Really Sorry for Oliver Kahn. up to That Point He Had Made Lots of Saves for the German Team. of Course He Could Have Caught the Ball but It Just Happened. It Was Bad Luck. in That Situation, You Need to Be Very Strong Psychologically to Carry On.

I Don’t Carry Any Early Childhood Trauma Around with Me, If That’s What You’re Hinting At. the Story of the Bicycles and There Were Three of Them Which Were Stolen from Me I’ve Dealt with It Well.

I Am Not an Expert in This Field but I Do Try to Keep up to Date with the Bundesliga. and I Do Follow World Cups and European Championships More Closely.

Thus, the Focus on This Main Political Goal Must Become More Visible in EU Politics and to Achieve This, We Need a Political Impulse. It Must Be Clear What the Priorities on the Agenda Are.

The Markets Want to Force Us to Do Certain Things. That We Won’t Do. Politicians Have to Make Sure That We’re Unassailable, That We Can Make Policy for the People.

The People in East Germany Have Lived Through so Many Changes in the Last 15 Years Like Never Before in the Country, and They Did This Often with Great Enthusiasm. but in the West We Also Have a High Degree of Transformations.

Herr Schroder Has Conducted Two Electoral Campaigns, and He Is Doing It Again Now, by Not Telling People What Is Really Necessary. He Keeps Avoiding the Difficult and Uncomfortable Issues, Those That Imply Changes and Therefore Provoke Discussions.

In Europe It Is Particularly Important That We Build Good Relations to Everyone Who Holds Political Responsibility Because Europe Can Only Be Build Together.

I See Nothing That Points to a Recession in Germany. but I See Considerable Long Term Tasks Ahead of Us That Have to Do with Markets Regaining Confidence in Europe and That Have a Lot to Do with Reducing Debt.

We’re Saying This to Both Countries: We Want a Two State Solution. We Want a Jewish State of Israel and Alongside a Independent Palestinian State. Unilateral Measures Are Not Helping at All to Bring About This Cause, and We Agree That We Wish to Cooperate Very Closely on This, Because as We Both Say, Time Is of the Essence.

It Is a Fact That, If I Single Out Germany, Our Rate of Growth Is Too Low and We Have Very High Unemployment.

From This Experience We Have Learned That in a Big Party It Is Important to Have the Necessary and Often Controversial Discussions on Policy Issues Such as the Health System While in Opposition.

I Think That the EU with the Lisbon Agenda Has Put the Right Emphasis on Growth and Employment.

So Europe Needs to Be Competitive and We Also Need to Be Competitive If We Wish to Remain an Interesting Economic Partner for the United States. This Has to Be Done on the Basis of Strength, of Competitiveness.

That Makes Me Think of the 2002 World Cup Final Above All Else. Nobody Thought at the Time That Our Team Would Get Through to the Final Against Brazil. We Should Remember That This Summer.

Personally, I Think That for Example the Chemical Directive in Its Present Form Does Too Much Damage to the Chemical Industry Especially the Medium Sized Businesses and Will Hurt Our Worldwide Competitiveness.

I Will Not Let Anyone Tell Me We Must Spend More Money. This Crisis Did Not Come About Because We Issued Too Little Money but Because We Created Economic Growth with Too Much Money and It Was Not Sustainable Growth.

At This Time We’re in a Dramatic Crisis Euro Bonds Are Precisely the Wrong Answer. They Lead Us into a Debt Union, Not a Stability Union. Each Country Has to Take Its Own Steps to Reduce Its Debt.

On the One Hand, the Financial Projection Is on the Agenda We Will See If This Problem Can Be Resolved or Not. I Think It Is a Right Idea to Stage a Special Summit, Which Would Deal with the Question of Priorities of European Politics.

Eurobonds Are Absolutely Wrong. in Order to Bring About Common Interest Rates, You Need Similar Competitiveness Levels, Similar Budget Situations. You Don’t Get Them by Collectivizing Debts.

It Certainly Is Dangerous That There Are Only a Few Clubs Left in Europe That Can Afford to Pay Millions. at the End of the Day However, the Spectators Decide the Rates of Pay by Watching the Games and Consuming the Goods and Services Advertised on Sports TV Programmes.

If the Euro Fails, Europe Fails.