I would like to start by wishing you all a very warm welcome to Schloss Bellevue. It is lovely for us, for me, to have you here, the representatives of those states to which we feel most closely connected – the G7, and of course Ukraine!

When I look around, I see many familiar faces: I have met some of you in many different places and at many different times in my life. When I think back, Nancy Pelosi, our paths crossed around twenty years ago. And some of you I met at a later point in time. In all of these years of working together, we, and also our predecessors, have experienced and had to master radical changes together.

Radical changes, transformations in political development are something which we certainly experience in different ways in the different regions of the world in which we live. I would say that for me, when I look back over the years and my political career: the greatest changes for me were the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification.

Just think of all the articles and books published in 1989/90, how great the hope was of an end to any East-West confrontation, of the breakthrough of liberal democracy around the world. Today we know that the famous "end of history" about which Francis Fukuyama wrote has not materialised. What did come was the Balkan wars in the 1990s, international terrorism and 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the illegal annexation of Crimea and the conflict with Iran over its nuclear programme – the truth is that history never comes to an end. A series of new conflicts have dominated world politics in the last few years.

All in all, however, it has to be said that no crisis, no conflict, was as serious as Russia’s attack against Ukraine. 24 February marks the start of a new era. What we have all worked for – also within the G7 – has been destroyed: the European peaceful order which had grown over the five decades since the conclusion of the Helsinki Final Act. All the efforts to create an area of common security from Vancouver to Vladivostok – they were all in vain. Putin has torn down the last bridges of dialogue, the last pillars of our peace in Europe. We have to admit that all our efforts, all our endeavours, could not prevent 24 February.

Millions of people in Ukraine are suffering due to Russia’s brutal war of aggression. Putin’s imperial delusion is destroying the lives of Ukrainians, not only their lives but also their country, their livelihoods. The G7 countries are doing everything they can to help Ukraine – in the form of financial, humanitarian, political and military support. And we will continue to do that. I assured Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, who was here last week, of that and then again Ruslan Stefanchuk today.

The world is different now for Ukraine, but not only for Ukraine. The common European house which Mikhail Gorbachev, who has just passed away, had in mind lies in ruins before it has even been built. The idea of cooperative security is history.

The political map of Europe has changed – fundamentally and not just temporarily. In the medium and long term, therefore, we need more rather than less foreign policy, more rather than less cooperation among like-minded countries. Especially at a time of increasing confrontation and rivalry – and I am thinking here not only of Russia’s war but also of our ever more complicated relations with China – especially then, the risks of further escalation are huge. We have to prepare for further confrontation, for further conflicts. And that means we have to be able to defend ourselves, in NATO, in the G7, and we also have to be in a position to exert economic pressure.

At the same time, we need new ideas and new instruments to contain any escalations looming on the horizon. We need them to see how we can prevent regional conflicts from blowing up into global crises, how we can reduce the speed at which crises escalate. We have to work on these ideas and strategies together – in our parliaments, in the EU and G7 and, of course, in and with new international partnerships.

I firmly believe that there will be no return to the time before 1990. The world will not, as in earlier times, be completely divided into two clearly defined blocs, even though there are largely democracies on the one and largely authoritarian systems on the other side. And at present at least, I do not think that something like a clearly defined third bloc is going to emerge under China’s leadership.

Rather, we will have to find new forms of cooperation with new partners. We know and have to realise that many countries in our world do not want to be fully aligned with one bloc. They do not want to join either side in the confrontation between liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes. I am thinking here of countries I have visited recently, such as Senegal or Indonesia, and perhaps also Mexico, where I will be next week. These are countries which, just like the G7 countries, want reliable rules and international cooperation – both political and economic.

With this in mind, our countries did not remain amongst themselves at the last G7 summit in Elmau – we invited partner countries to join us: Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa. It is important that these partnerships are always more than mere lip service. In light of the decisions made at the G7 summit in Elmau and the 600 billion dollars in investments pledged there, one can say that we are serious, that this was more than lip service.

Democracies need partners – both externally and internally. Today you discussed how we can strengthen our democracies through civic education and how parliaments can contribute to that.

Of course, we cannot expect democracy to be merely a machine for building consensus. Democracy needs controversies. And your parliaments are the very place for that. Parliamentarians are the ones who strive to find the fairest solutions in debates, who address social conflicts and issues of distribution, who balance out interests and, where possible, forge compromises. Nowhere but in parliament, nowhere else, do such a wide range of positions come together in such a concentrated form. Nowhere else can these controversies be debated so intensively. Nowhere else can decisions be made which have such broad legitimisation.

Especially in times of crisis, populist forces – not only in Germany – try to weaken parliaments and to conduct political debates not with arguments but with false information, disinformation, conspiracy theories or even violence – sometimes also with Russian support. In doing that, such parties and movements abandon our shared consensus on democratic and parliamentary debate, disregard our values of respect and mutual consideration for one another, values we need in every democracy. We have to come together and take a decisive stand against the opponents of parliaments, against the opponents of democracy – at the earliest possible moment. Strong parliaments and strong parliamentarians make our democracies strong!

I now invite you to raise your glasses and join me in a toast to strong democracies, to our resilience, both internally and externally – and to our partnership based on mutual trust!