85 Quotes by Martin Schulz

When we were negotiating the ongoing financial period in 2013, I talked myself hoarse. London and Berlin in particular insisted on reducing the budget. So we - to the applause of German journalists - made cuts to central future-oriented areas and slashed the budget for development aid, research and technology.

If we want to defeat Islamic State, we first have to arrive at a cease-fire agreement in Syria. Once that has been achieved, an anti-IS coalition can be assembled, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran. That, however, will be significantly more difficult in the wake of Turkey's downing of the Russian plane.

[Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an adherent of realpolitik. He knows that international relations are not built on the strength of unilateral demands, but on solutions that are in everybody's best interest.

Britain, Europe's second largest economy, a member of the G-7 and the UN Security Council, wants to leave the EU. That weakens us and it weakens Britain.

Turkey has in interest in finding agreement on more permissive visa requirements, it wants to be recognized as a safe country of origin and it wants to finally return to constructive EU accession negotiations. We Europeans decide all of those things together.

We now have two options: We can commence operations at the Hotspots in Italy and Greece and continue to do nothing - in which case they would soon be overflowing. Or we can show responsibility and organize a distribution system that takes into account the limits of each individual member state. Migrants, for their part, must recognize that, while they have a right to protection, they do not have the right to freely choose the country. In addition, it is clear: Not everybody can come to us.

Politics is a dynamic process. When I was a young man in the 1970s, Yasser Arafat had just perpetrated various terrorist attacks. Just a few years later, after I had entered European Parliament, the same Yasser Arafat was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

The stubborn stance of some European governments on the refugee question is a reprisal less aimed at Angela Merkel or (Vice Chancellor) Sigmar Gabriel than at certain people on Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin.

I believe it is wrong to give Moscow a rebate on Ukraine sanctions because of Syria.