Mr. Roland Freudenstein:

It does not play a huge role in the election campaign. This is for the think-tanks, the foreign affairs committees of parliament and the media. I do not believe it plays a big role in the election campaign, but that might be a bad thing. Perhaps it should be discussed more among the competing political options in Germany. There is no definition of national interest, no leadership, no notion of soft power in the sense of Joseph Nye or the instruments, as soon as they have made up their mind, with which they want to bring this across to the others and, as part of this, no communication strategy for explaining why the federal government is proposing this or that. They are not explaining to their own people or to their partners in the European Union.

There are three or four factors involved in that. One is the weight of history but sometimes that is just a pretext for laziness. Frankly speaking, most Germans, and this is corroborated in opinion polls, still want to be a big Switzerland. They would prefer to be rich, neutral and not disliked anywhere. They would not aspire to a leadership role, and certainly not in a military sense. That is another can of worms. What all this means is that Germany is unprepared. It will take Germany a long time to grow into that role of leading on the one hand but, on the other hand, trying to build coalitions and lead with others, listening to smaller partners in the European Union and trying to convince them that what Germany is proposing at this moment is in their interest too. That is leadership, and I have to admit it is not happening sufficiently at the moment.

As to whether the European Central Bank, ECB, is more detached today from fiscal policy in the EU member states than before, I do not think the ECB ever had or even should have a role in determining fiscal policies in the member states. That is for the democratically legitimate institutions of the European Union and not for the ECB. In my personal opinion or down my alley, the role of the ECB is monetary stability. As I stated, in France and other countries of the European Union, there are completely different ideas about the role of the ECB but-----