Being a people's party cannot mean being a kind of all-purpose political shop that offers something for everyone.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
I stand here as the mother of three children, who knows firsthand how difficult it can be to combine family and a career.
We need to be at the forefront of technological development again.
You always stand on the shoulders of your predecessor.
I believe that we must attach greater importance to the issue of industrial policy in Europe.
Brexit has been a strain on all of us. In some ways it has paralysed us.
To those who cynically say today that liberal democracy would be 'obsolete,' I reply: liberal democracy, human rights, freedom of the press and the rule of law were the right way, are the right way, and will be the right way.
I am convinced that we need a stronger Europe that acts in a common agreement on the most crucial issues. For me these are safety, defense, innovation and the aim to maintain our well being.
For a long time, perhaps too long, we believed that the world around us would become more and more peaceful, and the order more stable.
There comes a time in everybody's life when it's no longer enough to point and say he or she should do it, but you have to answer yourself... That's why I put myself at the party's service.
We have to be strong in ourselves. Whoever defines themselves only through their opponents risks making their entire programme... dependent on others.
For me there is no conservative and liberal party, not one that is pro-economy or pro-workers, not one for the East and one for the West. For me, there is only the one union, the Christian Democratic Union, that is our family.
Freedom of opinion is a valuable asset in a democracy.
There are similarities with Angela Merkel, there are issues that separate us, and I'm showing that genuinely and authentically and won't create an artificial separation because it has something to do with character and attitude.
I support social market economy. But it only works if there is fair competition.
When it comes to social issues such as the role of the family, I'm certainly more conservative than Angela Merkel. But on the big questions on what direction and where Germany should develop, when it comes to the economy, then we have very similar views.
Anything that keeps the U.K. close to the E.U. and best of all, in the E.U., would make me personally very happy.
If the U.K. had new watertight proposals for the border, I don't think anyone in the E.U. would say, 'We don't want to talk about it.'
Europe - and in particular Germany - must assume more responsibility. We must be ready to take on this responsibility and that has consequences domestically. That means, for example, we must be ready to spend more money on defense at home and abroad.
We need strategic strength for our industry, technology and innovation, a sense of security for our European citizens and common foreign and security capabilities to defend our interests.
That the CDU has different political views on the topic of redistribution, on the topic of uniform social standards... than the French have, that is nothing new.
I have the feeling we are the most uptight nation that ever walked this earth.
When it comes to me, I can rule out that I am scheming for a change.
If we have political forces in the Bundestag, and in parts of the coalition, who... say they want to spend money on pensions, not weapons. Then I say, be honest and say you don't want a German army.
There are high hurdles for expelling someone from a party, and with good reason.
But I stand here as my own person, as a mother of three, as a former interior minister, state leader, who has served this land for 18 years and who has learned what it means to lead. And that leadership has more to do with inner strength than how loud you talk.
We will look at the entire immigration question from the protection of outer borders through the asylum procedures to integration, in particular its efficacy.
It should be clear to everyone what happens when the populists can set the agenda.
There are also parties in Germany that support leaving the E.U. Everyone can see in the example of Britain what consequences that would have.
I have read a lot about what I am and who I am: 'mini,' a copy, simply 'more of the same.' Dear delegates, I stand before you as I am and as life made me and I am proud of that.
I learned what it is to lead - and above all learnt that leadership is more about being strong on the inside than being loud on the outside.
With every wish to take Europe forward with a German-French nucleus, the proposals must always fit with German interests.
The CDU is a party with more than 400,000 members. The fact that each one has a different opinion is what makes us interesting.
My goal is to unite the party, to bring it together.
We made a clear commitment to NATO's two percent goal. I know that we can't get there from one day to the next, but I'm just as clear on the fact that we must get there in the end.
I have to do my work as party leader and that's what I'm concentrating on.
Our feeling of community and security in Europe requires safe external borders.
I think people see me as authentic, just like I am, with my ideas, my style of doing politics.
We have to acknowledge and discuss with citizens that Germany needs to take on more responsibility. One of the questions is, 'Can we keep a functioning international order?'
When Presidents Trump, Putin and Erdogan are mentioned in the same breath here in Germany, as they are all too often, this is a false equivalence that cannot be tolerated.
European centralism, European statism, the communitization of sovereign debt, a Europeanization of social systems and of the minimum wage would be the wrong way.
You don't restore people's faith in law and order with shrill tones, but with real policies.
The CDU is willing to continue to take responsibility for our country. We want to do justice to the government mandate.
It's hard to pigeonhole me.
My husband and I had a very pragmatic agreement right from the start: whoever earns more works full time. So we switched the classic roles.
If the military is to show the capabilities that we demand and expect of it, then the defense budget has to continue to rise.
If there is a sport that I'm not particularly fond of, then it is synchronized swimming.
There will certainly be times when Merkel and I will have opposing viewpoints. Just the fact that government work adheres to a different set of prerogatives than a party does makes conflicts unavoidable.
The CDU was a party that united different denominational and ideological currents. If the idea of a rightward shift means that we ignore those roots and only define ourselves as a conservative party, then I am strictly opposed.
My life won't be ruined if I don't achieve all of my political goals.
