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It's in our interests that the euro is a successful, strong currency.

Europe has a lot of strength. We need to pool that strength, and I am very much in favour of that - more of a deeper political union.

This is what the European Union is all about. A strong market with a strong currency.

It's political glue inside Europe to keep it together - the euro is the best thing going for it since the creation of the common market.

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.

The euro must be defended, or uncertainty about the European Union will be widespread.

We must stress that the euro has been beneficial to the European Union because, otherwise, in this context of international turmoil, every country would have to devalue their currencies.

Integration is the most important asset Europe has, and the key component to European integration is the euro.

Germany has always stood for an E.U. of the 27 countries. But in light of Britain's continued resistance to further integration steps, as we saw with the fiscal pact, there are limits to my optimism in this regard. It's quite possible that we will have to create the new institutions for the euro zone first.

Indeed, the creators of the euro envisioned it as an instrument to promote political union.