YouSaid · the spoken record

Friedrich Merz

lines on the record: 39
first: 2025-07-18
most recent: 2025-07-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I very much hope that. And the first group of people who would realize that are students, that they will be able to travel much easier than they do after the Brexit. And the second group will hopefully be the people from the business, that they can travel and make business much easier than after Brexit. And we are doing that step by step moving forward. Yes.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He had quite a big rebellion recently. He's making his experiences here. We are doing our experiences at home. So we are all having our domestic issues, but we are jointly together to tackle these security problems we are faced with in the UK and on the European continent as well”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All crises, this is not a crisis in the government. We are having some issues on the table, but we are doing pretty well in this government. We are cooperating closely together, and that's the reason why we are really optimistic that we can achieve something.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When you are taking a look at our coalition agreement, you will see a coalition agreement which is really addressing these challenges we are having ahead of us. And this is not just economy and migration. This is as well R&D. This is technology. This is modern economy, service-oriented, much more than we did in the past, open for AI computing, a modern society and a modern industry. That is our goal. And we are moving ahead and now we are in week number 10 out of 200 where we are elected for. So this is the way we have just begun, but we are very optimistic to pursue our...”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I try to do what I can as a German Chancellor together with my colleagues within the European Union and beyond, that's the reason why I'm here today, to drive this European continent forward together.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For a pilot, it's important to be always ahead of your aircraft. So always thinking ahead, always Driving a car or flying an aircraft ahead of you where you are actually. So by the way, I go to the supermarket as well, but I don't take cameras with me.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are moving on, and this is now nobody is complaining about, I hope so, a German coach in England. So you see how history is changing to the better.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know him pretty well because he was in former times the coach of my team in Germany. So good luck to him and the British team, the English team.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we are witnessing now a completely different world, this period of our history after 1990 is over. And if we want to be able to defend ourselves not just as a country, but to defend our democracy, our freedom, peace, wealth in our countries, we have to do more than we did in the past.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I take that very, very seriously. And my answer is congratulation. She is 100 years old with full respect. And this is our destiny and this is our main task to preserve Germany in the center of the political arena.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, let's be optimistic that those who are in favor for a free and open society, for democracy, for a wide range of political convictions are really having seen the challenges coming from the far right and by the way from the far left as well. And that's the reason why we are trying in this coalition out of the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats in Germany to resolve the key problems and the key problems are migration and economy and we are on a good way.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The key message is that we all want to preserve the internal market program, the Schengen space, and that we know how valuable free move of capital persons, goods and services are within the European Union. But on the other hand, we have to tackle these problems with illegal migration, and we are on a good way. We are seeing now a new initiative within the European Union coming from Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands. 18 member states as well behind this initiatives. Germany is on the way, so we are on the way to improve the European legislation on that as well. My optimism is that we will tackle the problem.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do it anymore. Well, the results are very clear. We are seeing that our communes are not able to bring these refugees to school, to hospitals. We are not having enough housing for them. So the numbers are too high. And that's the reason why we are working hard on that, knowing that this will not change the entire picture overnight.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the numbers are still too high To be seen, the numbers are going down, and within the last two months, we brought the numbers down about roughly 50%. So Results are there. We have to work on that. This will remain a big challenge for us for the next month, if not years. But the answer is not just local, not just domestic, it's European, but as long as we do not have the sufficient protection of our European borders, we have to protect our borders internally.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, this is First, let me say that we are really coordinating all our efforts in terms of bringing these numbers down with our European neighbors. There is no neighbor. We are not talking within the European Union and we only have members within the European Union and Switzerland. And we are having a very, very intensive debate with them. Our ministers of the interior are working closely together and they are doing everything what they can to do that on a European level.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We will not need that much time when we come back to Parliament in September, October. We will be willing to change that and the treaty is the legal basis for that.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is part of our treaty, and we are decided on both sides of the channel to change that as soon as possible. And that's the reason why we are now laying that down in our agreement today. And we will do our homework immediately after, and then we will criminalize all these guys who are trying to bring refugees illegally to our countries.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You remember as I do how the news were in these days in 2016, there were two big issues. One was European regulation, and the second one was the refugee crisis. And if I'm remembering correctly, these were the two main points where the debate in the UK took place.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I remember 2016 when this vote was held and your former Prime Minister David Cameron tried to achieve some different regulation on the European level in terms of social transfer from one country to the other. And he completely failed and he came back to London with empty hands. And at the same time the refugee crisis came up and we did not do enough to tackle this problem. The right opposite was the case. And these two points, social security and transfer system and the refugee crisis was, in my view, from the continental perspective two of the main reasons for the outcome of the referendum in the UK.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely, I share that view, and you might know as well that President Macron and myself, we are very close, and the three of us, Kier Starmer and Emmanuel Macron and myself, we are trying to establish this format of E3, like we say, in terms of security foreign policy, but as well in terms of economic growth in our respective countries. And that's the reason why we are trying to coordinate ourselves at the best we can.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I definitely hope so. And I'm very close with Kir Stammer and we are really working very well, full of trust and confidence. You remember that we were together in Kiev in the very first week of when I took office. And economically we tried to bring our two countries closer together. We would like to ease business people from the business to travel. We would like to see students to have better exchanges and free access to our respective countries. That's the reason we are signing the treaty now.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do. And you might know that I was a member of the European Parliament in the early 90s. We had the Brits still there. I liked them. We were like-minded in so many political questions. And if I were a British citizen, I had voted to remain. But this has happened now the other way. We have to accept that. We have to work on that. And that's one of the reasons why I'm here today to sign this treaty with the United Kingdom and Germany on friendship and close cooperation because we need something as a treaty like this for our cooperation because the membership of the European Union is no longer there.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's true, but we are working hard on that as well. We have now never had that before, a Ministry for Digitization and State Modernization in one hand. The minister is coming from the private sector deeply experienced in transformation and he is doing the same now on the state level.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So this is on two purposes. The one is defense We know that we have to do And we are now scaling up to 5% of our GDP. And the second big challenge is our infrastructure. We are having not that infrastructure we need for our economy. That's the reason why we are with not good feelings, but that's the reason why we changed our constitution. So to be able to spend this money on defense and infrastructure. And that is the purpose.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the figures are very clear, and speaking a very clear language. So we are lacking behind in terms of our competitiveness, and we are lacking behind in terms of our productivity. So we have to work on that. That's the reason why we are implementing such a big and ambitious reform agenda in Germany. That's the reason why we are working very hard in this government on competitiveness. We achieved within 10 weeks first fundamental legislation in Germany on tariffs, on tax burden. So we are reducing the tax burden for our corporates, and we are moving on after the summer break. We are doing the work during summer in the government and as soon as parliament comes back from the summer break, we will put some new legislation on The table in Parliament, so we are really working hard in improving our economy.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, my approach to this conflict is quite simple. Keep calm and work on the issues. And we are doing that and nobody is benefiting from a trade war between the US and Europe. So that's my view on that, and that's the reason why I'm trying to come to an agreement shoulder on shoulder with the European Commission, with Ursula von der Leyen. She is the president of the EU Commission, the EU, the European Union is the partner for the United States of America.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm concerned but not pessimistic because I see that the American administration is willing to come to an agreement within the next two weeks. And we are now seeing the deadline, August 1st, and I very much hope that we will come to an agreement. The Americans are putting tariffs in place. I know that we will not have a symmetric agreement, but 30% is unacceptable. It's killing our export industry. So that's the reason why I see that there are many members in the administration seeing that problem, seeing that they should not overdo. But let's wait and see what will come up in the next couple of days. My observation is that the president himself is seeing the... Challenges and that he is willing to come to an agreement.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I like America, and I used to travel to the US very often. I never lived there, unfortunately. I had no chance to do that in my career. But I like the country, I like the way they are doing business. I'm very familiar with many companies, many corporates in the US. And we are having very, very close bonds to the United States economically. So Germany is one of the key countries outside the Americas to do business with America.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have him on Well, we had met now for three times in a row in Washington at the G7 in Canada and a week later at the NATO in The Hague. And we are on the phone once a week. We are coordinating our efforts. One issue is the war in Ukraine. And the second is our trade. Debates and tariffs, and we are trying to come to results. And that's the reason why I'm so committed.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I have not changed my mind. I'm observing that the Americans for years now moving away from Europe and turning to Asia. This, so to say, how is it said, pivot to Asia, is happening. And there are other places in the world the Americans are interested in, and they are seeing themselves in a very hard competition with China. And that's the reason why they are telling us, take care for your own, and we are doing it.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They pushed us, and when we had our general elections, this was a week after the Munich Security Conference when we saw JD Vance speaking to us in a very open manner, so to say, and we have to draw our consequences out of that, and we are doing that.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, at least he is not as clear and as committed as former US presidents were, former U.S. administrations were, and that's the reason why we are all looking for more independency from American defense. We know that we have to do more on our own. And we had been free riders in the past. And the Americans guaranteed our freedom and our security. And they are not willing, understandably, they are not willing to do that any longer.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, this is part of our NATO membership, and this has been part of, by the way, being part of the EU membership of Great Britain, because we have a similar article in the European treaty, like Article 5 in the NATO Treaty, which is 42 in the European Treaty. And this is now renewed by our bilateral treaty between Great Britain and Germany today. We are ready to defend ourselves and long-range fire is part of our defense.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This idea that you can talk to the Russians. At least I'm happy to see that he is in the meantime convinced that this is not over within a couple of days and that he is now disappointed, as he says, is a good sign that he is now moving on and taking actions, at least sanctions, and the delivery of weapons. We have an agreement on new weapons for Ukraine. He is still delivering ammunition to Ukraine so I very much hope that he will stick to that.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you might know that President Trump and myself, we are in good speaking terms. We are trying to coordinate our efforts here on the American side, me in person on the European and on the German side. We are trying to act together and to try to bring this terrible war to an end. And I fully trust that President Trump is really willing to put this war to an end. We are talking about measures. We are talking about weapons. We are talking about actions. And yes, I think that President Trump is on the same page. We are trying to bring this war to an end.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When the invasion of Crimea and parts of Ukraine began and the open war began on February 24 in 2022, now we are faced with a complete different world and this world has been changed by Russia mostly”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think our view on Russia has fundamentally changed over the last decade. We all hope that after the Cold War, we were able to form a new political order in Europe. And we had agreements on that. The two plus four agreement with former Soviet Union, the Paris Carter. We had so many Points of good relation with Russia. Business went pretty well. Oil and gas was one of the basics of our economy. So this has fundamentally changed the latest with 2022. You could say also since 2014 when this terrible war began.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have to be able to defend ourselves, which is actually not the case. We are not strong enough. Our army is not strong enough. So that's the reason why we are spending a lot of money more than ever before after the Cold World War so that we are spending a lot of money which we have to borrow. We changed our constitution and we are seeing a big threat. And the threat is Russia. And this threat is not only on Ukraine, it's on our peace, on our freedom, on the political order of Europe. And that's the reason why we are doing that.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, let me say that I'm really honored to be here today because this is an historic day for Britain and for Germany to sign this agreement. And for our domestic policy, it's important that we are becoming stronger militarily than we were in the past and that we are becoming stronger economically as we were in the past. So this is the mission of our government.”
2025-07-18 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Friedrich Merz One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source