For my part, in everything I do, I aim to strengthen democracy in Germany and beyond. The United States is also a strong democracy. As we are seeing in Poland, for example, and also in Hungary, it is important that we have counterweights in democratic systems, and I believe they are still strong in America.
I am always on duty, even when I am at party events or on vacation. I don't complain about it, on the contrary. Time management for candidates without government functions is different than it is for me. No matter where I am, I always have to have my duties as chancellor in mind.
I take advantage of the ability to fly with helicopters belonging to the federal police force, and this privilege is consistent with rules that have been in place for decades. A chancellor must be accessible at all times and be in a position to execute their duties as best they can. I must have the ability to immediately return to Berlin if necessary. There are also security considerations.
The plurality of German campaign formats, including the televised debates, reflect that we in Germany don't directly vote for a person like in the United States or in France, but for parties. We have a different system.
As chancellor, I am - as it should be - constantly under the microscope from both the public and the media. It is also important to me that my staff tells me openly how they see things. And an additional good indicator is the mood in my own electoral district. When I am there, which happens frequently, no one is particularly excited or impressed anymore to meet the chancellor. People there tell me immediately what is going well and what isn't.
I have great respect for press freedoms. At the same time, however, a politician also has the freedom to decide whether he or she will accept an invitation to appear on a show or not.
The campaign in the media takes place in many different formats, such as in citizens forums or town - hall shows. And because we don't have a presidential system in Germany, people vote for parties instead of specific candidates. From the perspective of smaller parties, even one single televised debate is a detested anomaly, because only the lead candidates from the conservatives and the SPD take part.
The full veil is not appropriate for Germans, and should be banned wherever legally possible.
We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands, of course in friendship with the United States, in friendship with Great Britain, with other neighbors wherever possible, also with Russia. But we must know that we need to fight for our future ourselves, as Europeans, for our destiny.
The times when we could fully count on others are over to a certain extent.
I feel like we are in a community of people who sign up for these values who try to maintain them and wherever they are not yet respected, to stand up for people's rights to enjoy them, as well. And this is worth every effort.
I fortunately know very many people, and there are many, many more that I don't know and many politicians who stand up for the same values of democracy of liberal societies, of open societies of respect for the dignity of man.
It is actually a very good thing, if after eight years of coverage the president of the United States [Barack Obama] says that this is a cooperation based on friendship that we cooperated well.
If you've worked together with somebody very well, leave-taking is very difficult. But we are all politicians. We all know that democracy lives off change. So, in the United States of America, the Constitution has very clear stipulations on this. It's a tough rule. Eight years and that's it, out goes the president and a new one comes in.
If it's in the German interest to have good trans-Atlantic relations, well, the task is also to look ahead, but our personal - that we have freedom of movement in the whole of Germany so if we want to see each other, well, I'm game.
The fact that people have hijacked it is certainly not something that fills me with great joy. We have to find new ways of addressing people, new ways of getting into contact with people.
Belong purportedly to certain groups say, "We are the people and not the others." That is something that we cannot allow to happen. That is something that I think at the time in the GDR - at the time when we had this in the GDR, where the people stood in the street and said, "We are the people," that is something that filled me with great joy.
Trying to keep a society together, trying to keep the older and the younger people together, trying to keep those who live in rural areas together with those who live in cities is one of the most important and most noble tasks of politicians these days.
When we, for example, see shifts of huge production lines from certain areas to other countries, people tend to ask the question, "Where's my place in this modern world?" We have this here, this tendency in our country, we have it in other countries.
I think we live in a period of profound transformation. Very similar to when we had a transition from agricultural societies to industrial societies.
Look at the history of the printing press, when this was invented what sort of consequences this had. Or industrialization, what sort of consequences that had. Very often, it led to enormous transformational processes within individual societies. And it took awhile until societies learned how to find the right kind of policies to contain this and manage and steer this.
We have [unfriendly policies] here in Europe, too. We have them here in Germany, too. And to take up where the president left off, digitization is in a way a disruptive force, a disruptive technological force that brings about deep-seated change, transformation of a society.
Look at the European Parliament. There are a lot of people who are looking for simplistic solutions, for - who are sort of preaching policies of - well, very unfriendly policies.
Alliances are part of our destiny as a nation, part of our future as a nation and this is what guides me in my policy, what guides my government as a whole.
It's important that the disparities in the living conditions cannot be allowed in this digital period to be too marked. Each and every one must be given an opportunity to participate, which is why Germany's fate in many ways depends on the firmness of its alliance with NATO, with the European Union.
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