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Hello and welcome to Ask DW Live on YouTube. I'm Gad Alas, and this is the show where your questions take center stage. Today, we'll be taking your questions and comments regarding Germany's coalition crisis. With us today is Nah Haza, our Chief Political Correspondent, who will tell us what's been going on behind closed doors in the Chancellery and various party HQs over the last 24 hours.
And over there, we have Cassandra Sun from our business desk to walk us through the economic and financial issues at the heart of this crisis. But before we dive into your questions, let's take a quick look at what actually happened.
It's a political earthquake that's been threatening for months now. Olaf Scholz has had enough of the fighting. Christian Lindner, the Finance Minister, has blocked laws irrelevantly too many times. He has acted to serve his clientele and party too many times and has broken Scholz's trust. Thus, Germany's three-way coalition government is over, unable to compromise over ideological differences. Schulz will call a vote of confidence in himself in January. This will allow the members of the Bundestag to decide whether they want to pave the way for early elections. These elections could then take place by the end of March at the latest, subject to the deadline stipulated in the Basic Law.
This is the man Schulz sacked: Christian Lindner from the Democrats accused Schulz of recklessness in the face of the economic crisis. His carefully prepared statement from tonight proves that Olaf Scholz was no longer aiming for an agreement sustainable for everyone, but rather a calculated break of this coalition. With this, he is leading Germany into a phase of uncertainty.
On a night of high drama, it was the third wheel in this complicated relationship, the Greens, who sounded a regretful tone and warned of the collateral damage. "We also want to say that there was no need for the night to end this way. It was not possible to fill the budget hole, even though there were solutions on the table. Different solutions were on the table, and the biggest probably would have been to give further support to Ukraine. That would have been the right answer at the beginning of the day in response to the election of Donald Trump."
Needless to say, the mood among the opposition center-right Christian Democrats this morning is jovial, but the prospect of a minority government is unacceptable. They want new elections as soon as possible. There's absolutely no reason to wait until January of next year to hold a vote of confidence. The coalition no longer has a majority in the German Bundestag, and so the CDU/CSU parliamentary group unanimously demands that the Chancellor call for a vote of confidence immediately, by the beginning of next week at the latest.
The aftershocks are not over; more talks are planned. The way ahead is unclear, but in the end, it will be Schulz's decision.
So a pretty serious situation; we can all agree on that. Even before we start, let's look at the first viewer question, which I think we will have on the screen right now. William Kim is asking, "It will be helpful to start first explaining what the German coalition is for people who don't know."
So I assume we all know what a coalition is and most of our viewers do, but why explain the current coalition for us and why a coalition is politically so typical for Germany.
To break this down, I think you have to look at Germany's political system as a whole, which is different from countries where you have the choice between, say, the Democrats and the Republicans and you go for Team A or Team B in a national election. This is not the case in Germany.
So we've got a lot of political parties, and that number changes all the time. There's a threshold in the Bundestag. When Germans go to the polls, they can cast their votes for the political party they choose. If 5% of the German voters say, "Yeah, I agree with those policies," then that party makes it into the Bundestag. This means that the Bundestag always consists of different parties, and then the question is which parties can form a government.
Because we have so many parties in the Bundestag, we never have a situation where there's just one party that can rule and everyone else is the opposition. This means that traditionally, the strongest party then gets to ask potential partners. In this case, Olaf Scholz's government, the Social Democrats, won the last election in 2021, meaning they got the largest share of the votes, but not a majority by themselves.
Exactly, and they got the largest amount. They got the largest percentage in the polls, and that translates into how many seats they get in the Bundestag. Then, Olaf Scholz was in a position to say, "Okay, I've got the biggest political group"—that's the name of that group of people sitting in Parliament. He then went to the Greens and asked them whether they were willing to govern with him. That was still not enough, so they also got the business-friendly liberals, depending on how you want to look at them, the Free Democrats.
These three parties have now formed this coalition government. You have to say that because the situation in Germany, like in many other countries, is such that the mood in the population as a whole is getting sort of people spend more time in their own bubbles. It's no longer the case that there's some sort of loyalty—"My father has always voted Social Democrats, so I'll vote Social Democrats." People pick more specifically according to their own needs or the candidates' appeal, etc.
So in this case, Olaf Scholz had to do it with three partners, so that is the first three-way coalition. Coalitions have been the norm really in post-war Germany, and it used to be a pretty simple affair because we only had three parties in the Bundestag: the two big tent parties, the conservative CDU/CSU and the SPD, plus the rather small FDP, the Liberals.
Over many years, that sort of worked quite well for Germany, but now the political landscape has changed, hasn't it?
Absolutely, and that's exactly what I was touching on just now—that people don't have that loyalty to those big tent parties. There's also been a split of those big tent parties. The Social Democrats were challenged from within by people who wanted a more left-wing course. There were so many people within the Social Democrats that said, "We've had enough of that moderate course that the rest of the party is going." So we'll form our own party, and that then led to the establishment of the Left Party. That was during the time of German reunification that had a lot to do with that as well.
When you look at what's happening now, even the Left Party has been split. So we're seeing this fracturing, which is making coalition building a lot more difficult because, like you said, we used to be proud of this ability to form coalitions and essentially get everybody on board, have the conservatives rule together with the Social Democrats, and try and force compromises that then everybody has to live with.
We have to mention there’s of course another big political force now on the right wing that all the other parties will not work with for historical reasons mainly. But that also paralyzes, in a way, the German parliamentary system because there's a very large chunk of the vote that will for historical reasons not be part of any government.
So I think it's important to explain that that limits the choices, doesn't it, and also forces people and parties together that really have issues with each other—fundamental political issues, as we're seeing right now.
Absolutely, you're talking about the far-right Alternative for Germany party, and there was a similar development to what I just described with the left parties. We saw that conservative politicians, some of them, were not happy with how the big tent CDU party was handling financial affairs. So they said Germany needs to look more at its own currency, and perhaps Cassandra, you can add a bit to that, you know, in terms of the significance of financial stability and all the debt break and how important that is.
They didn't want to give up the German national currency, the DeMark, and said we need to go back. The Euro doesn't work; it's a stupid idea. Some countries in Europe are not stable, so we'll break out of that, and they formed their own party called the Alternative for Germany. Over the years—over the 13 years or so that it has existed—it hasn't existed for that long, but it's a massive political force at the moment because it has radicalized over the years.
It went from being a party that was critical of financial dealings, euroskeptic, with a Germany-first sort of attitude, but more when it comes to economic dealings—not ideology as much—and then over the years, it has radicalized to an extent that now the political thinkers in that party—some of them are even being observed by German intelligence authorities—because some of the members of that party really do make claims that could potentially threaten German democracy itself.
The rise of the Alternative for Deutschland party has a similar reason for the rise of right-wing parties in a lot of countries around the world, which is economic concerns. This is an undergirding rationale for a lot of them; it started as euroskeptic, but it's actually turned now to slightly—well, not slightly—anti-immigration. More immigration is something that economists I speak to say we actually need, so it's a bit of irony there.
From my advantage, Cassandra, I would like to ask you also to set this up really—the breakdown of the current coalition that we've seen yesterday at the very heart of it are economic issues.
That's right. The current German economy is not doing great. You look at the top five economies around the world; there's one thing that Germany doesn't have compared to the rest of them, which is a growing economy. The US, China, India, and Japan are all growing for the last this year and the previous year. For the last two years, Germany hasn't grown, and that's been a major problem.
Part of this is the manufacturing sector. It's the real heartbeat, a real engine of the German economy, making up about 20% of GDP. That manufacturing and construction is in a recession right now. The economy itself is only in a mild recession, but those two sectors are about 2.5% and about 4.5% in recession, so that's really dragging down the rest of the economy right now.
I would like to check whether we have another viewer question there right now, and while we wait, I would like to encourage all our viewers to comment—put forward your questions for us.
We have another one from a viewer called Jan, and Jan is asking, "What should Germany and the EU do to bring back industrial growth in this region, and do we have strong enough leaders to make tough decisions?"
Let's stick with the first one: How to bring back growth there. It seems to be, from at least the German standpoint, some squabbling on how to do that. I think if there was a clear idea, say, for instance, to go all in on electric vehicles, there might be more backing, either from voters or from parliamentarians. But it doesn't seem like everybody's pulling or pushing in the right direction.
There's a tug of war, and that lends itself—we've kind of hinted at it a little bit so far—but this debt break, this willingness to take out debt. If there was a consensus about how to bring some of this back, it might be a little bit easier to kind of assuage these concerns that folks like Christian Lindner have about potentially suspending the debt break once again.
But right now, there doesn't really seem to be a consensus about that. Part of it is that there have been shock after shock to the German economy in the last few years. I'm sure a lot of people have heard these before—but COVID and then the energy crisis following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine—all of this has been shocks.
To be honest, from a background historical point of view, this has been a slow-moving train. I was reading a report today from 2013 saying, for example, that there's not enough skilled immigration coming to Germany. So this is not really a surprise to people who've been watching for a while. Right now, there's still no easy solution about how to get some of this back.
But it's also—can I just add—that Germany's business model in itself is being challenged, right? I mean, for decades, Germany's economy was growing because I read that, and it just sums it up so nicely—the Americans protected us, you know, militarily. We didn't need to spend any money at all on because we just said, "Alright, we've got a big brother and they've got nuclear arms, so why invest in our military? It's unpopular, and we don't like it."
The Americans protect us, and the Russians send us cheap gas, and the Chinese buy our cars. All of these three things in the last couple of years have drastically changed—all of them. I mean, just look at China: how they have just said, "Okay, we'll go all in producing those electric vehicles."
You're completely right; it's exactly why this coalition collapsed in the end—why Olaf Scholz and Christian Lindner couldn't agree on the right course. So in a way, this collapse of the current government could potentially—try and get back to Jan's question—be an opportunity to decide on one course.
Because there's nothing worse for companies than if they don't know, "Okay, can I actually count on the government giving me funding if I decide to set up a company?" Right? Maybe in three months' time there will be funding because it's a green tech company, but if they don't know, maybe I should go for tax breaks; I don't know.
Now to have clarity and certainty—that is a big, big deal and not to be underestimated. Maybe we'll get clarity very, very soon, or maybe later next year. We're going to address that issue in a moment, but I want to come to our next viewer question that is about Ukraine that we've just mentioned. It's coming from the US, from a user called Goo, and Goo wants to know: "Has the Ukraine-Russia War caused these political and economic problems? If the war had not happened, would Germany be more stable?"
That's, I think, a very interesting question because German politicians, especially in this government, always kept referring to the fact that things are not going well, but that's all because of what's happening in Ukraine. Of course, that's a big factor. We would be better off without it; we'd still be getting Vladimir Putin's gas probably and wouldn't have the energy prices that we have currently.
But that is a very good question: would it be different? I think it would be different only in that the timeline might be stretched out a bit. Like I said, these are longstanding problems. This idea that Germany should digitize, for example, has been something that's been talked about now for going on two decades.
Plans have been undone to increase broadband, for example, across Germany in the last 20 years. So it's only in the sense that maybe we could have kept the chickens from coming home to roost a little bit longer, but this is one of a few factors here. Right?
Not enough skilled immigration is one part of it. The other is Russian energy, like we've talked about. But then again, China seems to have really caught Germany sleeping here, even though we all knew we were taking a nap to a certain extent. China caught us sleeping: the German legacy car manufacturers have just not made the transition to electric vehicles at the same rate that China has.
So these things might have turned up the heat a little bit over time, but at some point, all three of these factors would have collided. Just look at solar power as well—I mean, renewables: there were so many small and medium-sized companies in Germany doing all the research, and they were market leaders, and then they went to sleep.
99% of solar panels are made in China now. A similar issue is that I just read the other day that China is currently building one of those small nuclear reactors that are sort of the next generation of nuclear power, which is CO2 neutral. They've sort of finished the prototype, and it's based on a German concept, and we stopped that altogether for other reasons.
But we have another viewer question, which is, as I'm hearing from my producer Simon there, related to what we just spoke about, and it's coming from Martin in Germany. Martin says, "The Russia-Ukraine war drastically affected electricity prices. Germany hasn't invested enough in new technologies in the past 20 years. How can Germany continue to finance its huge social welfare projects?"
That's a very big question, and of course, I start with Cassandra.
Well, there's really three options, right? You either raise taxes, or you potentially go into debt, and I forgot the third option I was going to say, but going into debt is part of what's brought us here today. That was an option that was just not on the table for at least the smallest coalition members. But raising taxes in Germany—taxes in Germany are already fairly high, especially corporate taxes—that's not really seen as an option.
So that's currently where we stand.
Yeah, I mean, that's also the issue that is at the heart of this conflict in this coalition, actually—the reason it broke up. Because let's remind viewers, Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats, the liberals, the business-friendly party, has sworn a holy oath to not cancel the debt break, and the debt break is in Germany's Constitution. It only allows limited borrowing for the government.
But that's an interesting point because there are also exceptions to the debt break that are legal. Just look at what happened after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022: Olaf Scholz came out, gave a speech, and announced that we were seeing a huge shift—a huge change. He called it the "Sondervermögen," and he announced, "Okay, we're now going to set up this special fund, meaning special debt, 100 billion EUR," and he got approval from everybody.
That was the first time that the debt break was suspended by this government, and it was a legal process. Last year, the same government said, "Okay, let's agree that if there’s another emergency, we'll take a very close look at whether we can have another very specific exception from this rule."
They argue we're not just being generous, supporting Ukraine; we're doing this out of our own interest because Ukraine is keeping Russia at bay, and we're protecting our own security. We invest in Ukraine because otherwise, we'd be faced with potentially devastating consequences.
And that is something where Christian Lindner just stuck to the debt break, and that then led to the collapse. He refused to—and one thing I believe also was that they couldn't agree—and this refers back to this viewer's question—that Lindner said, "This is a slippery slope. We can't look at it every single time something extraordinary happens and sort of brush over the debt break and ignore it."
The Constitutional Court has, I think, already once ruled that it can't be lifted, this debt break, without any really serious reason. And he has suggested cutting into social welfare budgets. Would that be an option? Would that have been possible? It seems to me that this is a big budget, a big budget, and the way that Christian Lindner has held the debt break so close to his heart—these social welfare programs—that’s Olaf Scholz's red line, is my interpretation of it.
I'm an immigrant to Germany. I only came here a few years ago, and it always sounded to me like the debt break was something that had been enshrined since the founding of the new Republic, but it actually was only in 2009, really, not that long ago. At the time it was passed, Germany had this rising debt.
It was pushing, I think, into the 80% of GDP ratio, but now Germany has such a low debt-to-GDP ratio and such a hunger, I think, from the entire system for some kind of investment. You think about energy, for example, and things that we would do in our own interest.
It costs money to build these temporary LNG terminals, and those might not cost as much money as a permanent structure, but at what point are those big bills going to be spent to make something that's long-lasting instead of kind of some piecemeal infrastructure here and there? At some point, you're either going to take out money now to pay for a bridge or you're taking out a loan against that bridge because, as we see, these projects just get more and more expensive the longer that they're pushed out.
Let me refer to our next viewer question that you mentioned: energy prices, and I think this is related to that from Yan again. "Is it a comeback of nuclear energy on the table to lower energy costs and compensate for the electrification of mobility and heating?"
Politically, on the table? Comeback? No, it's not at the moment—not while Olaf Scholz from the Social Democrats and the Greens are running this government. They are now, of course, in a very weak position, but they're still running the government in this minority government until we see Olaf Scholz's vote of confidence in the Bundestag. Parliament gets dissolved; we see fresh elections. When that will happen, we don't know—by late March at the latest.
We've been talking about red lines, and that was one of the problems in this government coalition: every party had very clear red lines. Social welfare is absolutely a red line for Olaf Scholz and the Social Democrats; debt break suspension is absolutely a red line for Christian Lindner and his Free Democrats; nuclear power with the Greens—I don't think so.
And you know, they have very strong arguments. I mean, it is very costly to get these things going again if you've stopped them. Industry is not really interested. I just read in a newspaper today or yesterday that the leader of a very large power company actually is not keen on restarting nuclear.
There was already an attempt, if I remember correctly, right after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to extend the life of some of these power plants that had already been scheduled to be shut down, so I would imagine that they did that for three months.
Yeah, not a long time. I'm wondering if maybe some of those political players feel like they've given a bit on that already with this extension?
Absolutely. I mean, the Greens—look at what they've done, right? They've crossed a couple of their own red lines over the past three years already. When you look at what they did, they agreed to building new coal power plants, building LNG plants. This is not something that they celebrate at home, but they've told their voters, "Okay, look, we have to be responsible," and the question of nuclear power is a very strong one.
With immigration, they also crossed a lot of their own red lines, you know, agreeing to stricter rules, etc. I mean, they're arguing that nobody talks about the climate crisis anymore. This was a huge topic a couple of years ago. Now, of course, it's sort of been marginalized.
If you look at a country like France with nuclear power and if you look at the heat waves that we're seeing all around Europe, we look at the temperature in the rivers that cool these nuclear power plants—there's a wise investment. If you need to cool these plants so much at a time of global warming, I mean, this is their argument, right?
So there are experts who are discussing this, but I don't think it's economically even wise to do that. The conservatives see it a different way, so we'll have that discussion back on the table absolutely as soon as a new government is elected—as soon as the election campaign kicks off properly, which was last night actually.
Yes. Okay, let's have a look at the next question. You touched on the red lines there a moment ago, and the user AJH77222 wants to know: "What's behind the rise in conservative right-wing politics? Too much change or too much fear and intimidation?"
That's a question for you, isn't it?
Both? Isn't it both? I mean, just when I think, you know, we're all human beings, and I can sense that in the conversations that I have with people—with family, friends, but also colleagues—you know, we can see that it's overwhelming. The news is on our table, in our pocket all the time, 24/7, and the algorithms work in a way that they feed us the articles, the memes, etc., that touch our emotions.
So, of course, we're constantly being fed a lot of things that we wouldn't have necessarily noticed. I think that is being underestimated by politicians across the board—that not everybody who says, "You know, it's getting a bit too much," is automatically a Neo-Nazi.
That is something where especially the Greens, because I've been talking about them for so long, they do have to come to terms with that reality. Some of them are very quick at judging people you know, whenever they say, "But don't we have a problem in some areas? Don't we need to look at it more closely?"
So on the one side, I would say we've got too much information and not enough people have the patience—like you—to sit down and listen to people trying to explain context. You know, we see our quick feeds, etc., and then of course, yeah, some people are refusing to address problems because it doesn't fit their party politics.
I have another question for Cassandra, I believe, and I think we can put that on the screen right now from Manoy SH. "Will Germany force companies to move to the US due to the tariffs which will be imposed by Trump's government, and how would that affect the employment rate over the next two years?"
Tariffs have definitely been a focal point on our desk. We're trying to figure out how much of this is going to actually be implemented and how much of it is bluster at this point. But there have already been incentives from the US government to move some business to the US.
The Green New Deal or the Inflation Reduction Act from the United States was a big driver to get businesses to relocate there, so we've already seen a little bit of this. But tariffs—that's a stick, right? That the US government is really trying to beat people with, so it’s a possibility.
Something that was quite interesting that I was reading today related to the Trump presidency that just sparked for me from that question is that the German defense company Rheinmetall actually saw a very good day on the stock markets today because they're anticipating that from the Trump administration that's coming in January, there's going to be this line again from Washington that Germany needs to spend more on defense spending.
So that's one company that's already seeing this as a potential boon here in Germany. I would argue that, unlike 2016 when politicians, experts, and the general public here in Germany were completely taken by surprise by Donald Trump's victory, this time around there has been a bit of preparation.
I mean, politicians have traveled to Washington; they have tried to establish contacts with the US; they are aware that—or they were aware, even, you know, a couple of years ago, that this might be a possibility that he would come back. They've now understood a bit better what he's after, so he's very transactional, right?
So if you find a way of identifying Donald Trump's interests and try and find a way of making sure that it doesn't contradict your own interests, I think Germans have to learn how to do political diplomacy that is interest-driven. We haven't done that; we are not very experienced, but they'll have—
Big no-no!
That’s been a very big no-no, yeah. To be egoistical about your country's best interests is it egoistical? I don’t know. You know, but if we look at—I was looking at how Angela Merkel congratulated Donald Trump on his victory at the time, and she gave this speech about how we're joined by common values and democracy is very important—the right of minorities—essentially reminding Donald Trump, "Don't you dare forget about all of those."
Then compare that to how Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock said, "Right, okay, we've got the message. You will probably tell us again exactly what you said: you need to invest a lot more in military." So, okay, now all of us Europeans, we need to pull together. Now, whether that's going to happen, I don't know, but there's a very clear line to me between the current German economic woes and any potential tariffs that come, right?
About 10% of German exports—just under 10%—go to the US. So if tariffs get whacked on those, that's bad. But that's a lot.
But what are those items that actually go to the US? It's auto—the auto industry, mechanics, things that are at the core of the German manufacturing heart that I was talking about earlier.
So these industries, that are already kind of struggling, energy-hungry industries that have seen their margins shrink, they're going to be looking for smoother relations. Unlike any Chancellor that comes into effect from a snap election, Angela Merkel had a lot of gravitas and history behind her in her relationship with the US.
I would guess that, like, a new Chancellor isn't going to have the same kind of political backing that Angela Merkel had at the time, so it feels like it could be very transactional to me.
I'd like to come back to the actual coalition crisis. We've talked a lot about the background of it. You could see that in the last couple of months, really step by step, how events have driven these changes in policy—crossing of red lines.
One was, for example, the attack in Poland that has forced the government to change its policies towards immigration. Another important piece of news that came out just recently, and that was foreseeable, is that VW, one of the crowns—the diamonds—in the crown of German industry—a world-leading company—is about to close three factories in Germany, breaking with a decades-long tradition, right?
Exactly. To do that, and that was a shock to the system, I think. It was, in the end, maybe many voters even saw that and felt, "God, it's coming this close."
Just, Cassandra, explain to us how important the car industry, and especially Volkswagen, is for Germany.
Well, when you think of German cars, Volkswagen is probably one of the three that you're definitely thinking of. When we talk about German manufacturing, it's a huge part of the German economy. I know I'm repeating myself, but it's just true—it's a big driver here.
Germany is an outlier in the European Union with how much it relies on manufacturing. France, for example, I think is it about 4% or 5% of its GDP is manufacturing.
So that's on the macro level, but when you look at it on a more zoomed-in level—these towns that these factories are in are built around these factories. Those closures aren't just going to have small effects; they're going to have massive ripple effects throughout those communities.
So both on the macro level and on the micro level of where those three plants will be closed. I don't believe that they've announced which ones will be closing, haven't decided yet, right?
Those are—that's going to be an earthquake for those towns. Was that a—if you remember that, a couple of weeks back when that was announced, what was the reaction from the political class here in Berlin? Do you remember?
Well, of course, Volkswagen is also a special company because the state of Niedersachsen has a stake in the company and is on the board. So, you know, this is a semi-public company. Obviously, all the local and regional politicians were shocked. They were all involved; they were given part of the blame, and this is a political drama as much as an economic drama.
And I would just like to add, it's not just the jobs; right? I mean, this is the identity of a lot of communities—the Germans and their cars. I mean, people make films about that.
There are countries around the world that celebrate German-made cars. I mean, it's a psychological issue as well.
One other reason for the problems that this coalition has faced is the growing anger about the fact that Germany seems to be crumbling and breaking apart at the seams. We're just looking at the railway system: trains are not on time anymore. The sort of fabled German characteristics—we're just losing them right now.
Is that one of the core reasons? Would you agree that that's one of the core reasons this coalition has imploded?
Well, one economist I was talking to was talking about how the underinvestment here in Germany was just tragic. I was trying to connect some of these dots, and it seems like underinvestment, or less investment, does really line up with the debt break.
It went into effect, I think, in 2016 after it was passed in 2009, or it could have gone into effect sooner than that, but underinvestment has been a story here. You see it all around Germany. There were headlines around the world during the World Cup when the visitors to watch the Men's European Cup—excuse me—this summer, that the trains were just not running on time, and it was really affecting football fans.
You don't want to affect football fans when they're trying to play football.
As well. So this has been a slow, slow crumble, and it's becoming more and more visible—not only to people living here in Germany, but to the outside world as well.
And this is, of course, the biggest criticism of Angela Merkel's legacy, right? I mean, people around the world celebrated Angela Merkel as the leader of the Free World when Donald Trump got elected and Obama stepped down. So, of course, you know, she was in a position—the economy was running smoothly, everything was working well, and the conservatives in power at the time really became complacent and enjoyed that situation.
This is something that you do have to give the current government credit for, I mean, for a long time. Part of Angela's government as well, we must say—the Social Democrats weren't; the Greens weren't; the FDP weren't—and they were warning about that for a very long time. Then they did roll up their sleeves, but I mean, how much can you fix after 16 years of that?
Those coalition governments who were not prepared to make all these uncomfortable decisions and cause delays because if you're building a new train connection, then of course there's going to be delays, etc. You know, it's not very popular for a politician.
It's this path of least resistance that keeps coming up: why change? As a German auto manufacturer, why change the kind of car you're building if there are so many consumers in China that are willing to buy these nice Mercedes-Benz or these very nice other cars? Why invest in this infrastructure if what we can do is actually just kind of stay the course, keep getting gas from Russia, for example, but build new pipelines to make that even easier? It's the path of least resistance, and the costs are becoming very apparent now.
We have, I would assume, roughly three minutes left, and I would like to include at least one last viewer question or user question. TK is asking, "Will a change in Germany's government affect its relations with the rest of Europe, the US, and China?"
Very interesting question! Thank you very much, TK.
Nina, of course, it depends on which government comes into power, but that's an obvious thing to say, for me now. What you do have to say is that we were talking about the far-right party that has members under surveillance by the intelligence authorities. Those people are not in power quite yet.
So far, the German Bundestag consists of a majority of parties with a very clear pro-European stance: the conservatives, the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats, and the Left Party. Where they disagree with the Left Party is on NATO, weapon supplies—all of these issues.
But overall, it's a very outward-oriented Bundestag that says, "Okay, we can't do matters by ourselves and we are at the core of Europe." I mean, we have borders with nine European countries, right? So we can't ignore our neighbors.
But will it affect the relations? Yes. When you look at foreign policy issues such as support for Ukraine, will a conservative government potentially give Ukraine the go for those rockets that President Zelensky in Kyiv has been asking for, where he can target military infrastructure on Russian territory? That is something that was a red line for Olaf Scholz; he said so many times.
Very, very briefly, we have a minute left. Will it change—let's say a CDU/CSU government—would it change anything economically?
The CDU is largely represented in the South, a very energy-hungry part of the country where a lot of manufacturing is done. But I'm really going to be looking for any signals about a change in relationship with China—that has been a question mark over this coalition government.
Words like "de-risking" and "decoupling" really—Germany has had a goal for a few years of trying to manage its investments in China or its manufacturing and trade relationship. So that's what I'm going to be looking for.
But as it stands right now—
To be seen.
Lots more questions here in the chat. I'm afraid we have to leave it here. Many, many thanks for sending in all your questions and comments. Also, thank you to Nina and Cassandra for sharing your considerable expertise with us and our viewers.
Thank you very much—stay tuned for DW news.
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