67 Quotes by Wolfgang Schauble

I would caution against fueling cheap populism. First of all, every German who has spent a vacation in Greece knows that the standard of living there isn't higher than it is in Germany. Second, Greece is paying a high price for European assistance.

In the long term, Germany didn't need a finance minister who was absent during important negotiations in the European Council. But the chancellor strongly encouraged me to stay. And everything did work out for the best in the end.

As a wheelchair user, you can't move about freely. That's the only thing that bothers me a little. When I'm in the Euro Group in Brussels, colleagues who want to talk to me have to come to me. But I hope they know that this has nothing to do with arrogance.

If we were to have a presidential election in Europe it would be an event that would spark a huge interest in people from Lisbon to Helsinki, just like national elections. And it would create a completely different political setting in Europe.

The United States lived on borrowed money for too long, inflating its financial sector unnecessarily and neglecting its small and mid-sized industrial companies.

As for the role of France and Germany: French politics is often more self-confident then German politics due to the catastrophe in the first half of the last century. If Berlin and Paris don't agree, then it is difficult to make progress in Europe.

I've been a politician long enough to know that every year will find us living in a situation that one couldn't have imagined a year previously. Sometimes it's better than we imagined, sometimes it's not as good.

The German export successes are not the result of some sort of currency manipulation, but of the increased competitiveness of companies. The American growth model, on the other hand, is in a deep crisis.

There are several silver linings on the horizon. The current account deficits in Spain and Portugal are declining because they have become more competitive and they're exporting more.