“Whether you like it or not – you’ll have to put up with it, my lovely.”

This line comes from a Russian song.

Russia’s President Putin quoted this barely concealed allusion to rape – with a barely noticeable smile on his face – while talking about his neighbouring country. Two weeks before he ordered the full-scale invasion of sovereign Ukraine.

That was no coincidence. It was a remark full of chauvinism. A remark demonstrating a strong craving for power, full of cynicism and contempt for human life. A ruthless remark.

Three years later, the Russian President isn’t the only one who stands for this worldview – which is not to be based on rules but on the law of the strong. In which the mighty draw lines on a map and the others submit to them. In other words, they have to “put up with it”. If necessary, force – including sexual violence – is used.

A worldview in which political players are prepared to destroy overnight rules, partnerships and trust built up over decades. In some cases with a tweet. A world of ruthlessness.

The foreign-policy task of our age isn’t to simply put up with this but, rather, to join with our partners and stand up and speak out against this world of ruthlessness. To defend the rules-based international order. Not primarily because this is the moral thing to do but because it’s in our own best security interest.

Here in Germany, we also see some people asking loudly whether we ourselves couldn’t benefit from the law of the strong. People who want a leader who takes a hard line. We hear some saying that European law, international law, liberal democracy are just traits of weakness.

But the opposite is true. Rules make us strong. They are our best form of self-protection.

We are a strong country. However, if we look around the world with our eyes wide open, then we realise that we are not a global military power. We are not an oil and raw-materials empire. We are a smart-power country.

As the world’s third-largest economy, our country is strong and successful when trading routes are free and safe and we can rely on our security alliances. When international law applies to our companies and they have access to other markets. When skilled professionals can come to us with their know-how.

On the playing field of ruthlessness, on the other hand, we can never win. On that playing field, we can only be submissive, allowing ourselves to be instrumentalised by others.

If we stand alone, we can only lose in this world. That’s why our answer not only to 24 February three years ago but also following the election of the new US President and the pronouncement of “America First” was so unequivocal. We stated our answer loud and clear: Europe United.

Europe United also in the sense of a Europe bold and brave.

The situation is serious, there’s no doubt about it. But I believe that because the situation is so serious, complaining won’t help.

There’s no use saying: we’ll go with the flow a bit and limit ourselves to struggling every day just to make sure that we don’t go under.

Rather, we have to be bold and brave. I believe that we can emerge stronger from this difficult situation, from this difficult period – as Germany, in the heart of Europe. Bold and brave – we demonstrated these qualities in the German Bundestag two weeks ago. With financial resources, with a united effort to amend the Basic Law.

These financial resources are now available. This undertaking can only fail now due to a lack of political will, or to our own lack of ambition. Those in Europe or in Germany who shoulder responsibility in these ruthless times must, in my view, realise that sitting on the fence a little bit won’t work. To me, Europe being “a little bit strong” is like being “a little bit pregnant”. It’s simply not possible.

We have to act now with full vigour – without procrastination and with clarity. We have to be self-confident, decisive and join together with strong partners.

Of course, by self-confident I don’t mean over-confident. Eighty-four million people don’t make up the majority of the world’s population. We shouldn’t talk ourselves up. But we have to know our strengths and weaknesses, and use our strengths in a strategically intelligent way. We have to utilise them strategically.

Then we’re stronger than some think. Europe has the largest single market in the world. One in seven of the world’s patents are held in Germany. The EU 27 is the world’s biggest exporter in more categories of goods than China – from aircraft to medical technology.

Yes, we all love iPhones. Yes, to date we haven’t managed to establish a major European social media platform, for example.

However, we have the Digital Services Act – and it’s powerful. In the last three years, we have created a joint European toolkit – actually in response to another great world power – the EU Anti-Coercion Instrument.

When others, this very day, talk about 25%, we can hold up our toolkit.

For very many people around the world, the European Union is the most attractive place to live, to work and to study. According to the University of Oxford, more than half of the 20 happiest countries in the world are located in the EU. By the way, not one of them is an autocracy.

We in Europe played a huge role in ensuring that after 24 February 2022 more than 150 countries around the world stood up against Russia’s aggression. That’s well over two thirds of the countries in the world. In early March three years ago, nobody would have believed that Ukraine would continue to exist as a free and democratic country in the fourth year of Russia’s brutal war.

We managed, as the EU 27, to freeze Russian state reserves within a single weekend in February 2022. It’s precisely this resolve that we need now.

We certainly won’t follow those whose motto is “move fast and break things” and declare the chainsaw to be their favourite tool.

But nor can our motto be “Keep calm and watch from the sidelines.”

That’s why we have to ask ourselves in all honesty what obstacles actually stand in our way today.

We can’t react to every situation. But nor can we first of all spend three months discussing what we should actually do at a time when we are threatened with coercive measures.

One such obstacle has just been the subject of intense discussions among the defence ministers: the European defence industry is still very much structured on a national basis – and that makes it inefficient. If we Europeans continue to mess around with 150 different weapons systems that are incompatible with each other, then we can spend all the money in the world on them and still not be powerful enough. So in my view it is no longer a question of whether we will create the European Defence Union, but how quickly.

And the fact that our European capital market remains fragmented means that we have a lot of money, a lot of private capital, but unfortunately it is being invested in other markets that are increasingly turning into our competitors. So there can be no other answer except finally to create the single Capital Markets Union.

And if the core of the EU is the principle of joint decision-making, and Article 4 paragraph 3 of the Treaty on European Union says the goal is the “principle of sincere cooperation”, then we cannot simply keep putting up with a situation where for three or maybe two years one single EU country has been doing exactly the opposite. And not only does that country keep going counter to this principle of sincere cooperation every six months at every round of sanctions – it is also blocking the accession talks with Ukraine.

The prospect of EU membership is not only a central promise for the future to Ukraine: rather, we have learnt the painful lesson in this world that there must be no more grey areas for our own security on our own continent. This applies not only to Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, but particularly to the Western Balkans. And so, in a situation where Europe’s security is under such threat, where we don’t always know exactly what side the Americans are on, where we are more worried than at any time since the end of the Cold War, resolve is imperative. And that is why, in conclusion, I make this urgent appeal: we need to make use, at long last, of qualified majority voting on key issues of European external policy.

We can no longer afford not to be fully capable of action here. If Article 4 paragraph 3 of the Treaty on European Union counts, and if the principle of sincere cooperation applies, then it is now high time to make it clear that anyone who blocks or attacks this principle must reckon with another article. The one three articles on.

One doesn’t know whether it will have to be invoked. But what I do know is that we have joined together in a group of states. Quite a few of them used always to be against qualified majority decisions, because they are smaller countries, because they were worried that Germany would take advantage of QMV in external policy in its own interests, and that small countries might be left behind. In the last three years, however, our Group of Friends has grown to include more and more states, not least the Baltic and Nordic states who were long opposed, that have made it clear that we do not want just to have to put up with this, we want to act and take measures ourselves. We want sanctions packages to be continued; we don’t want to have this process of negotiation at every step towards enlargement. Rather: if, for instance, we have taken the decision to start the enlargement process, then we want to be able to progress on the individual chapters even with a qualified majority.

Because of course the third point – establishing partnerships and alliances worldwide – can only work if other partners don’t keep saying “But you can’t manage even just with 27”. In other words, this Group of Friends that is leading the way in the EU with bold new proposals is needed worldwide.

And in my view something has happened on that front in the last three years, something I also regard as an opportunity, not least for us as Europeans, and especially with an eye to the elections in the United States and the supposed “end of the West”. After all, it’s actually good that we no longer have a supposed seating plan in the G20 – the West on one side, the BRICS countries on the other; at climate change conferences, the industrial countries on one side, the developing countries on the other, the “global South” versus the “global North”. That never made sense in geographical terms anyway. Instead, we have seen, not only in the votes in the United Nations, that time and again 140 states were for, not necessarily Ukraine, but the rules-based international order. And at the climate change conferences, which have now become geopolitical conferences, there were 160 states that were against the blockade, against the spoilers. Because they said Fiji doesn’t really have very much in common with us. But we all know that if the rules no longer count in climate policy, foreign policy, security policy, then no country can rest easy.

And that’s why partnership is so important at this time. It is an opportunity for Europe, because Europe is trusted as a reliable partner. And so we still need more serious and especially trust-based diplomacy. And in my view that certainly doesn’t mean just saying what others want to hear, but talking honestly, so that the others feel that they can rely on Germany and on Europe.

And there are bigger alliances than those we always used to like. The G7, for example. Strong economies and democracies. But there are other strong economies and democracies in our world. Japan and Canada are members of the G7. But New Zealand, Australia and South Korea are not. It is cooperation with these actors that we need to keep on strengthening.

And that applies to many other countries in the world that are far away and that certainly do not share all our values. But the core value that unites virtually all countries of the world is that the United Nations Charter, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, is the best form of self-protection. Because no country in the world that is not itself a nuclear power can rest easy in these ruthless times. If it always has to fear that its bigger neighbour could simply invade – and the others say nothing.

So our reliability, our smart power, our commitment to the rules-based international order, are our biggest assets. Because all the companies from all these countries want to invest their money in places where they know that they won’t suddenly be hit overnight by decree with punitive tariffs. Or like in Russia, where many companies saw all their investments become worthless from one day to the next, because they have to withdraw.

Last year, in the negotiations on the Mercosur agreement, it again became very clear after decades that if, at decisive moments, we finally act together, then we are incredibly strong. If the countries of Latin America and Europe make it clear, despite all our differences on agricultural products, that we are united by our interest in a rules-based world – in terms of both economic and security policy – then we will find the strength that together we need. If you combine Mercosur, CETA and the other agreements with Australia and New Zealand, then this is not just smart power, it is a huge power in the world.

In this spirit, one never need just put up with something in life, and certainly not on one’s own continent.

It is not our fate to live in a ruthless world.

As Europeans, it is in our own hands, together with others.

We are the world's largest internal market.

Together we are the largest union for freedom and peace.

We have strength when we are self-confident, when we act resolutely and in a spirit of partnership with others.

That will never be easy.

But every day of hard work is worthwhile.

Because it is our Europe.