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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.

So that we focus not on competing visions for Europe but on what Europe can do to improve economic growth, to give us a cleaner environment, to create more jobs, to make us more secure.

We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised.

What we need is a common goal for more Europe.

In Europe it is particularly important that we build good relations to everyone who holds political responsibility because Europe can only be build together.

But we can turn challenges into opportunities if we look outwards to the realities of the global economy and modernise our internal institutions in ways that will equip Europe to meet that challenge and create confidence amongst the public.

People feel that the EU is heading in a direction that they never signed up to. They resent the interference in our national life by what they see as unnecessary rules and regulation. And they wonder what the point of it all is. Put simply, many ask 'why can't we just have what we voted to join - a common market?'

I said, yet again, for Germany, Europe is not only indispensable, it is part and parcel of our identity. We've always said German unity, European unity and integration, that's two parts of one and the same coin. But we want, obviously, to boost our competitiveness.

We want the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union.