“We rightly complain when allies overstep the mark when they use electronic surveillance to detect threats. And yet, we prefer to remain reliant on them and hesitate to improve our own surveillance capacities.”

German Federal President Joachim Gauck in his speech to open the 50th Munich Security Conference on January 31, 2014. He talks about Germany’s responsibilities in a changing world and demands a “more substantial” German contribution to conflict prevention. He encourages German universities “to mobilize more than a handful of chairs where German foreign policy can be analyzed”, and calls on Germans to trust in themselves. “We Germans are advancing towards a form of responsibility that has not yet become routine for us”, he says.