There is no stability without solidarity and no solidarity without stability.

Usually I don't comment on comments of others.

We need open, competitive, market economies... but at the same time with effective regulation and supervision.

Germany is the biggest economy of Europe and we need Germany on board for the economic reforms of Europe, including, of course, the deepening of the internal market, resisting protectionism, and supporting further economic policy coordination.

I very often compare relations between states to relations with people. Sometimes we are nicer to those we don't know well, who are not our friends, than we are to our friends, because with our friends we don't need to be nice all the time.

Let us not forget that the European Community started as a project for peace after the terrible Second World War. And today people take for granted the freedom to travel, to study, to work abroad. And the citizens of one country have almost exactly the same rights as another country.

The dynamic of globalisation in financial and economic terms, but also in geopolitical terms, confronts Europeans with a stark choice: live together, share a common destiny and count in the world; or face the prospect of disunity and decline.

The new narrative for Europe should be about the need to have a responsible organisation, the need to be able to defend our interests and promote our values, like human rights.

There's a tendency in many politicians to become inward-looking, more protectionist, more nationalistic and more defensive, in the bad sense of the word.

You have to understand that to have a revolution when you are 18 years old is completely different from normal political leaders who were born in a democracy and will die in a democracy and never to have experienced that change. I have seen that change.

You see in times of crisis that extremist forces, populist forces, have a better ground to oversimplify things and to manipulate feelings. Feelings of fear.

What people call serendipity sometimes is just having your eyes open.

I think diversity can also be a resource, an asset, especially in a world that is becoming globalized, to deal with difference, to deal with variety, to deal with complexity.

A new state, if it wants to join the European Union, has to apply to become a member of the European Union like any state.

By the way, the European Union Member States together - even the euro area Member States together - are by far the biggest contributors to the IMF.

Decisions taken by the most democratic institutions in the world are very often wrong.

Even when governments take the right steps to reform, these can be negatively impacted by events outside their control.

Financial transaction tax raises problems of competition.

For investor confidence, it is important that there is certainty about the future of Ireland in E.U.

Governments are not always right.