After hosting the World Cup here in our own country, after this unique experience of community, of national cohesion, of joy and cosmopolitanism, let me use the language of soccer. One year after the Bundestag elections, we’re in the 23rd minute of a soccer game. Yes, we’ve already scored a few great goals. Yes, we had some good shots … but victory? We haven’t won anything yet.
We have another 67 minutes of playing time. There are many more opportunities, many more chances to create and use for Germany.
We have to keep working, not only to win the first 23 minutes, but also the whole game. My task as team leader is to maximize the opportunities that we can identify and utilize for the benefit of Germany.
To do this, the Christian Democratic Union must succeed in recognizing, naming, and tackling the critical task of the twenty-first century. This one task will decide the future of our country.
In my view, this one decisive task for the future is, and remains, the renewal of the social market economy.
Let me say very frankly: I am returning to the thought that has guided me since I became party chief. I know that many of you cast skeptical glances when I started talking about a new social market economy a few years ago.
I know that I wasn’t able to convince all of you the first time around. My main focus is not the term “new” social market economy. In twenty years, we might call it the new social market economy, the international social market economy, the global social market economy, or just the social market economy.
The important thing is that we don’t fumble around when it comes to the real point.
It has been a good five years since our “New Social Market Economy Commission” got to work, and one year since I assumed responsibility for the government as chancellor; and I am more convinced than ever that the Union must succeed in modernizing the social market economy.
This is more than just rhetoric, communication tricks, or linguistic games. I believe that this stands at the heart of our political activity in our century, in the twenty-first century.
And, yes, this is about nothing more and nothing less than the values that have made our country so strong: freedom, justice, solidarity. For I want us to fill these historic values with new life in the twenty-first century, in the global age, and not just confine them to paper.
And we know that many people are worried and doubt whether it will work, whether politics has enough influence, enough creative power. Whether the social market economy can still succeed at all.
To convey the magnitude of the issue at hand, I will present one small example: there are 450 million people in Europe. In China and India alone there are a total of 2.4 billion. These two countries account for about 40 percent of the world’s population. During a state visit to India, the Chinese president recently said that the world – and I quote – “will see a true Asian century” if India and China take advantage of their joint development opportunities.
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