German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle talks to German news magazine Spiegel about new government plans to tackle the economic crisis, Obama's Afghanistan strategy and his own contribution to German society's acceptance of homosexuality.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Westerwelle, if things had turned out slightly differently, we would have been coming to meet you at the Finance Ministry. We always thought that Guido Westerwelle would have to become finance minister, because of his focus on economic issues. And now we're meeting with you here at the Foreign Ministry. How could that happen?

Guido Westerwelle: The Free Democratic Party has a long tradition in foreign policy. The periods when the liberals were in charge of foreign policy have always been great ones in our history.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps, but you personally were always interested in other issues.

Westerwelle: My passion and my commitment to foreign policy may not have been visible to you while we were in the opposition. But both were very much present.

SPIEGEL: The new government coalition of the Christian Democratic Union, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union and the FDP is fighting over tax policy at the same time as you saunter off to Warsaw and Washington. That doesn't seem very consistent to us.

Westerwelle: Given all the hard work and loss of sleep involved, I don't feel that the word "saunter" is entirely appropriate. Things aren't any different for the chancellor. I want to do a good job in my position, while at the same thing making sure that political concerns of the liberals are not ignored. So far we've been very successful at that.

SPIEGEL: Really? Otto Graf Lambsdorff, the honorary chairman of the FDP, has written that a spirit of discord has already set in among the three coalition partners.