We have to ensure politically that what's doable can indeed by translated into law, but what's not doable mustn't become European law. Otherwise, the auto industry will work somewhere with higher carbon emissions - and we can't want that.
The 'community method' can only be applied in those areas in which the European Union actually has competence. Where the community has no competence, the 'community method' clearly cannot be applied.
The West was a wonderful world to me. I decided then that if this is the way they did things, then I wanted to be part of it.
I chose to pursue a career in physics because there the truth isn't so easily bent.
This inclination to hoard is deeply ingrained in me because in the past, in times of scarcity, you took what you could get.
After the reunification, there was a certain sense of foreignness because daily life in the former East German states was completely turned inside out - everything from the shops to the bureaucracy to the working world.
I think it has been a tremendous feat on the part of East Germans since 1990 to adapt to everything changing.
I always wanted to know what I'd face next, even though that was maybe a bit detrimental to spontaneity. Structuring my life and avoiding chaos was more important.
The way I lived my life, I truly wasn't an active resistance fighter.
I come from a country in which I experienced economic collapse.
Very early, it became clear to me that East Germany could not function.
In many regions, war and terror prevail. States disintegrate. For many years, we have read about this. We have heard about it. We have seen it on TV. But we had not yet sufficiently understood that what happens in Aleppo and Mosul can affect Essen or Stuttgart. We have to face that now.
We've always had this experience that things take long, but I'm 100% convinced that our principles will in the end prevail. No one knew how the Cold War would end at the time, but it did end. This is within our living experience... I'm surprised at how fainthearted we sometimes are and how quickly we lose courage.
If the euro fails, Europe fails.
To grow up in the neighborhood of handicapped people was an important experience for me. I learned back then to treat them in a very normal way.
I always used the free room that the G.D.R. allowed me... There was no shadow over my childhood.
We need... to say to people that this is a temporary residential status, and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained.
