Angela Merkel

The euro is our common fate, and Europe is our common future.

We will have to accept a certain degree of legal immigration; that's globalisation... In the era of the smartphone, we cannot shut ourselves away... people know full well how we live in Europe.

It is nonsense to say that Germans are unable to change.

The question is not whether we are able to change but whether we are changing fast enough.

Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific islands and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about a sustainable development.

I've often made critical comments about settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and in east Jerusalem, and my position hasn't changed. At the same time, it's equally important to me that the two sides, both Israel and the Palestinians, work towards a durable peace settlement: that's to say a viable two-state solution.

The willingness to learn new skills is very high.

There is a lot that binds Germany to Turkey, and even if we have a difference of opinion on an individual matter, the breadth of our links, our friendship, our strategic ties, is great.

That is why everyone in politics, and we do it, must make sure that they do not depend on one single interest group. A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.

For me, personally, marriage is a man and a woman living together.

We Germans have a special responsibility to be alert, sensitive, and aware of what we did during the Nazi era and about lasting damage caused in other countries. I've got tremendous sympathy for that.

Let us answer the terrorists by living our values with courage.

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.

During the course of 1989, more and more East Germans lost their fears of the state's repression and chicanery and went out on the streets. There was no turning back then. It is thanks to their courage the Wall was opened.

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.

I think the political class in Berlin doesn't need to be supervised and monitored by intelligence services in order to find out what they're thinking. Just go to lunch with them, go to dinner with them, or read the papers.

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.

Germany's strength lies largely in the fact that the Federal Republic is a center of industry and that it's an export nation.