look to the future, the people of our age need to be contemporary and the reflect. what's happening today. okay. tango has to keep evolving just like everything else. the pandemic may have muffled the music, but the 2 by 4 beat of the tango goes on, bringing the heart of what a cyrus, alive again. i 10. what osiris? ah, hello, adrian. i get here with you and i was 0. the headlines polls open in germany is parliamentary election scene is the most competitive in the years. more than 60000000 people are registered to bows and a ballot that will ultimately determine who succeeds chancellor. anglo merkel. after her 16 years in office. how to, how made reports from the they have 2 boxes to take on their balance

sheet. the 1st one is to vote the local constraint because to trend and the 2nd one is to vote the party they prefer. now after that the once that vote is done those, but that part you would then go to buddhist at the federal parliament coalition negotiation. and it's only once they form that coalition that the coalition then those 4 who will become the. busy next time to of germany, at least for palestinians have been killed and 8 others injured in confrontations with israeli forces in the occupied west bank palestinian sources say the israeli forces storms. several villages in janine and ramallah surrounded houses and open fire on the early in the morning, israel says that soldiers rated 5 villages to arrest what they called hamas operatives. molly, as prime minister as accused france abandoning his country, as most french troops prepared to leave speaking at the un chug well color mega

said his government is justified in seeking other partners and apparent reference to private russian military contract. my leading, it's principally concert does molly to read for the principle of consultation and concentration, which should be the rule between privilege partners. it was not observed before. the french government's decision in the new situation resulting from the end of operation. but honey, which present smalley with a fait accompli and expose of it to a kind of abandonment in mid flight leads us to explore away the means to better ensure security, independently or with other partners. a ton of assets rounded up thousands of fighters linked to iceland, jalal about it comes after a number of i still attacks in the area of those headlines ponies, for here on to 0. after inside story, next talked to al jazeera, we could what gives you hope that there is going to be peace because the situation

on the ground seems to be pointing the way we listened. we were never on the whatever road to off migration we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that on sierra what will germany look like without angela muscle? sunday's election is turning out to be one of the tightest in recent history. how will the outcome shape your largest economy? this is inside story. ah . hello and welcome to the program. i'm the star the attain now. she's been in palette for 16 years, leading one of your most powerful nations. bob chancellor, anglo merkel. time and office is coming to an end versus now have a clear choice, continue along beckles pragmatic policies,

or turn left and give her parties rival the chance to govern. last month devastating floods to put the issue of climate change of front and center. nearly 200 people were killed and the wasp is asked as he hit the nation and decades. many verses say germany now must expedited transition to clean energy sooner than its plan. days of 2038. polls indicate the mark of rights, leaning christian democrats just slightly behind the ascent left contenders. what's next for germany after michael will bring it out. guess very shortly, but fast this update from her book need angle america leave to approach as chancellor, germany at a time where she is still quite popular among jeremiah. we do say that she did keep the table and prosperous. 15 years tenure, if anything she has seen as a crisis manager, she kept the country afloat during the financial crisis. she did deal with this refugee crisis back in 2015, even though i brought her some criticism,

both at home and your level. and even recently german scientists were behind one of the 1st vaccines when it came to the corona virus fund, them it now her opponent say she wasn't progressive enough. she didn't keep up with her time. someone will tell you this connectivity in rural areas. other would tell you that yes, she did bring about some changes when it comes to the climate prices, but she didn't do enough specifically. she didn't put enough effort to cut the carbon emissions. now she wanted to keep away from the campaign, but she had jointed over the past week simply because the her center right candidate, the candidate of her christian democratic party. i'm unless it is not doing so well in the pulls, even though he narrowed the gap over in the last moments of the election campaign. now her message,

if you want jeremy to remain stable and that's something very important for the german butcher disability of the country. well, if you want that to continue, then you need to look again for the center left. it's really not clear what will happen. anyone here and then tell you that the race is wide open, but it could be that after fixing it, germans would also look for a change. put up the mean, i'll just 0 for inside story. i'll since her rise to power back in 2005 anger matter of leadership and her policies have had a huge impact on germany and the european union. let's take a closer look at her legacy. now. one of her most important domestic policies was her 2011 decision to phase out nuclear energy after japan's fukushima disaster and other landmark policy was opening up japanese borders. community 1000000, mostly syrian refugees and 2015. america has also been credited with keeping the

you together during more than a decade of crises. she also played a critical role and tackling the european and global financial crisis between 20072009. ah. oh, let's not bring in our guests. in hamburg, we have mona l omari. she's a rice and activists focusing on social justice in berlin. we have over a broken political analyst and also professor of political science at stanford university in berlin and in london. oh, rica franka, a senior policy fellow at the european council on foreign relations. i will welcome to you all. thanks so much for joining us today. now, as we've been saying, anglo market remains incredibly popular in germany, and if she was a run again, she'd probably win hands down. so i wanted to start with who might succeed heads a, see a very close race to close to call at the moment. i think almost within the era margin here and to remind you is this is an election for the boon to struggle. the

parliament not actually for chancellor itself. and i see we are looking at a potential 3 party coalition now for the 1st time in many, many decades. i'll start with you. can you give us a lie of the land? it feels a little bit like the 2 front runners we've been seeing have really been in a competition to prove who can be more like michael. but it's not only the 2 front runners tried to imitate or to darn from macklin success. right? c, p, it is basically everyone trying to present him or herself as someone who can walk in the large footsteps. and if you would ask me to bet, i certainly wouldn't pass at this point because we have so many options in turnitin is that it's even possible that not the party with the largest number of votes would send the chancellor. but the junior partners will choose who's going to be the next chancellor. indeed, well, we may be waiting for some time as well for that process to take place. now,

one of the interesting things with this campaign, with, despite the apparent reluctance of the german electorate to embrace change really we have seen the rise of the green party. i'm curious, mono. what has been driving that? do you think? i think one factor from the ryan the green party, was the rise of the climate change discussion in germany that was pushed to the forefront by and use movements mainly night friday for a future, for instance, which had been stifled by the pandemic. but i think it had been brought back into the foreground by the recent flooding that happened in germany during the summer of this year, which cost many victims. there was another property damage. there was a lot of cough denies. and which nation, for example, from the city would not handle perfectly well. and was something that was somewhat

scandalized in german media. but i think it's those kinds of developments that make the green cards, you know, like an option during the selection. well, one of anglo michael strength was that she was seeing a such a strong crisis manager. right. and i see that the man who is nominated by the party that's currently just in front by few points in the last. paul's finance minister of sholtes. he's been wanting to almost present himself as, as an incumbent, as the less risky choice. now, given all this change in this post michael germany, i imagine there's actually more implications on this for europe in the e. u, than only for germany itself or rica. what is brussels looking for here? yeah, absolutely. i mean, the european union and the other european member states are definitely watching this election closely. at the same time, i have to say foreign policy and even european politics wasn't really

a big topic in germany during the election campaign. and i think it's frustrated quite a few of poor observers. i think one of the reasons why that is, is that despite the fact that there are some differences between the parties overall, we don't see a situation like, for example, we may need to see next year in front where you have a really, europe and your critical candidate against the very poor european candidate in my room at home in, in germany. all main parties are broadly speaking, pro european and for you. and so this was the big topic. nevertheless, there are issues from to repeat the pens and kind of disco union reform that, that, that may be approach differently depending on who wins on sunday and we'll finish this one will given michael seeming popularity. you'd think that her party, the christian democrats, would be nominating someone who may be a shoe in for the position. but things as we've been saying, haven't really gone as planned for, i'm in the ship already. it, as

a mona was saying, it really started going wrong with the floods the response, especially in the area which he's in charge of. and that unfortunate situation of mr. lash at some while laughing in the background. can you talk us through what happened there? and potentially, if there's something deeper going on hand, well, it's hard to say something deeper is going there. but we got used to someone who, as he was set before, knows how to set the right tone. mac lobbied for reelections by coining the term you know, me and this, you know, me like a representation of a conservative attitude. is something you would expect from a governor who was a professional in political leadership. and while the president of state and which is something like a republican king, was giving a speech life in front of

a number of cameras, lasha and his all too harsh were sending in the back and cracking jokes. and this is not what you do, even if you are currently not on tv and standing in the back. that representing something like the mood of the moment. and not what people expect in a situation where a lot of them lost family members or lost their homes. was something that stayed in the media for weeks. that shows that there is a lack of statesman standard that one would expect from a governor to perform well, as we've been saying, those floods really put climate change front and center and a number of the campaigns. and when we were saying the greens we saw the rise of the greens, but that lead really tailed off after a number of scandals including apparent plagiarism on the past. is there no money now? man, i understand she is still very popular with the youth, but given the relative older age of the german electro. is it her perceived lack of

experience perhaps that's really driven that decrease in popularity. and i'm, i'm also curious, given that climate change was front and center, how did the floods and the response to that not actually give the green party, but if a boost, i think you're posing it. yeah, 2 per question here. and my response to the 1st part would be to maybe cast a look at the or maybe german politics overall. i mean, the fact that there have been these changes i'm issue is it's not the 1st time that a german competition with the flag bibles and not just specifically within the green, but also in other parties. we had these issues, these types of instances. and whilst they had been somewhat scandalized at the time, they never kept the respective parties. for example, the, to the or the tv from being in government at that time. so i

think i'd rather pose the question whether pretending this to be so scanned. and this is not much rather a device during these campaigning times. and i think another issue and in this set of circumstances will be, i think that brings me to, to, to the answer of the 2nd question here is that there is within germany, within recent weeks, there has been a discourse of the so called like the fear of a slide to the nest or even the extreme, this looking at german history. they have been to me, s p. d chancellors in the history of the republic of germany. so this

perceived or this so called slide, the nest is not necessarily something that is in my opinion, compatible with reality. but it supply that is being used in order to campaign. and i think parties as you want to see the next 2 mainly the inexperience, the green party candidate, were able to make it appear that the green parties somewhat ideologically connected to the left. maybe you can make stream left and therefore has been able to frame them within the narrative. so called slide to the far left, germany, sorry to interrupt you them because i do want to bring or recon here. i can see that you're agreeing and i'm curious about how this then pays out on an e use stage, because we're obviously looking at a potential coalition government. there's been a lot of speculation about who might actually constitute that government. and i

mean, sholtes from the social democrats, even though it's the traditionally left policy, is really been trying to portray himself as more of the central character. did you think that all of this might change the way that germany engages with your? yes, so actually i'm not really agreeing with mona in the sense that i think that this idea of a possible flight to the left in germany is not completely out of the question. and so far as we have been discussing the possibility or by, you know, not the most likely possibility, but a possibility of having what's called the red green rhetoric, who edition. so the diesel democrats with the green and the link to the extreme left, which is holding a kind of single digit numbers. but they could end up in the next coalition government. and not only is it possible, but in fact, recent polls show that the majority of support of the grease are a case of 70 percent of the green part of support to actually prefer this coalition to all other issues. so 1st of all, you know, there is,

there is some appetite in some parts of the population or indeed going far more or less. and the thing is, what's interesting in such a radical read read, read, coalition. the one thing where these parties really disagree or put it this way where the link is really quite the outlier is on foreign and defense policy, because the link is a party that, for example, reject nato wants to either, you know, kind of abolishing a, to complete the would be with germany to leave nature forms, to create a new security alliance with russia. so if, if this party would be part of the coalition, that would be quite a big change potentially for germany. and that would be something that i think most european partner and indeed, you know, international allies of germany would be quiet. why worried about? because you don't really know, you know, how much influence this party may actually hop on on germany foreign policy. now we shouldn't over emphasize neither the likelihood would that kind of impact this

small party might have. but we can't discard to complete this fine. and this integral itself actually makes the quite interesting show it. well, i feel like we can't really talk about the broader european situation and foreign policy without really talking about from as a european power. i see both sholpes and i went to paris to meet with french president emmanuel macklin, just a couple of weeks ago. or rick, how important is that particular relationship for the german electorate, or do they not really care? well, it is really a pity that we didn't discuss european affairs nor transatlantic relations, the future of european defense. in the end, in the last weeks it was all about domestic questions of social issues, pension taxation, but not taxation in the sense of what's the future of physically union. none of the topics that mike hall was bringing up even before the previous elections,

to try to find support from germany. and i was predicting that we will get soon, a strong signal from berlin to support my call. who was such a relief that he won the elections against muslim the pen 4 years ago. and now the situation is still kind of similar that germany's and some sort of a weight and c position. and that will really make a difference who is in the, in what form of coalition in germany, in the future. because we saw charlotte sort of flirting with the idea of strengthening the european monetary union with something like a fiscal union. when he coined the term that this is a handful moment when we start suddenly allowed the european union to get indebted in order to finance the next generation your recovery fund after the panoramic. so that will certainly be an issue with a much more fiscally conservative party, like the liberal party or the christian democratic union that also doesn't really

have an appetite to centralize more macroeconomic competences. but one could expect something like this from the social democrats, depending on who will be the actual, your coalition partners. so i want to dig in a little more into the legacy that michael has left here when it comes to some of those policies because it really feels like her background of the scientist really made for more pragmatic policies will miss the kind of attempt to de poto rising policy, i mean, she, as you said, she defended the euro during the greek debt crisis. she supported that pandemic e recovery fund, which was really financed by common borrowing. she also, famously in 2015, kept germany's borders open at mon. i'm curious, how do you think germans regard that decision now because that obviously came at a very heavy political price and really, essentially also led potentially to the rise of the right cleaning a fee. so how the germans reflect upon that decision. now i think my response

wouldn't lend itself to also draw back for a quick 2nd to something that was said earlier about the left as a party. and i think i would call to question how very nef the left still is, especially with some instances off that i've, i'm calling minorities in germany for example, the trans community, the queer community, bizarre and minorities during the so called refugee crisis was also in favor of limiting the number of refugees that content entered. so i would highly calling to question how i left the left is and then brings me to the question just now is, i think what happened during the discourse is that macros policies and mac, and as

a political figure was drawn as much more progressive. maybe. then she actually is because yes, she did, government did open the board, us doing the refugee, so call refugee prices. but the way people have been treated here does not really speak to any progressive or jeff or critics who type of framing of the situation as another example would be markets stand on pain sex marriage. so i think she has been paying for this much more progressive than she really is. and what manage itself to do that is, this is the circumstance that germany has had and said it will government forest won't. or we can want to bring you in here on that close per get progressive isn't

because she obviously did champion same sex marriage, but taking a step back from all of that. she has also been this incredibly, incredibly strong female leader. not only in germany, but on the global stage for the last 16 years. and she's also brought in a number of very powerful women to very high ranking positions within the e u. so erico, let me ask you, then has shaken things up in brussels. has that changed the way that women are viewed then at the higher echelons of politics? perhaps? i'm not sure. so it's interesting because yes, on the one hand, for 16 years, the most important and give the most powerful politician in europe was indeed a woman that was generally very popular everywhere. so that should have some kind of impact, but merkel personally never really champions any kind of feminist agenda that she, she very rarely talked about these issues that were instances where she was off,

you know, the feel like you're feminist. and she wasn't quite sure whether she could claim this label so, so uncertainty kind of rhetorically. this was a big topic for her. at the same time. yes, over the last 16 years we've had, we've had 2 german female defense men on the line now. now, some problem on their line, of course, went on to become commission president in the, in the european union. so i think all of this has kind of normalized female leadership, which, you know, i think overall is, is, is good news. but i don't think that merkel really wish these issues in particular and maybe of the last 7. maybe that's actually quite good because it may help with the normalizing if you don't over emphasize it. but i know quite a few, you know, feminist activities in germany weren't super happy with, with the fact that she didn't really seem to push this agenda a lot. oh right. you're sitting in balance. i'm going to give you the last very brief word here. if you don't mind, obviously germany so far over the last 16 years is really become an economic

success. huge challenges though still lie head, especially when it comes to as we've been saying, climate change, the green transition, huge infrastructure challenges as well. after 16 years, a relative stability a you nervous about what might happen now? well, no, i wouldn't be nervous. depending on no, it doesn't matter who's going to be the success of makeover. the country will not be in a situation that would make people nervous. of course it will be a different style, it will be a different performance and the coalition priorities, well, also different from what be cup, but compared with country is that a hugely polarized or in a situation in which it could lead in a complete opposite direction. imagine, for example, in the pan will become president of france next year. then it will be a very different country from what it used to be. so none of this will happen in

germany. and i don't think there's a reason to be nervous, although they are very different expectations on whatevers. i'd of the political spectrum, your look at it, of course, progressives would wish mca would have been more progressive, but you wouldn't have been in power for 16 years. if she wouldn't have moved the conservative party more to the center. so now we have so many central parties of different colors that in the end, i'm pretty sure i would look at something like a stable coalition. she certainly change the political landscape, hasn't. she will continue watching the election very closely. indeed, thank you to all of our get smyrna elementary or brooklyn and rica franka and thank you to for watching. you can see this program again anytime by visiting our website . that's algebra dot com and for further discussion, do go to trial facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash age 8 inside story. remember, you can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is at a 5 story for me to stop. you pay on the whole team here in

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understand the differences in the cultures, the cost of what moves wilson, the news and current. does that matter to you? oh, i think it's under way in germany as people choose a replacement for angle and merkle after 16 years in power. ah, hello, i'm a 3 and again this is l 0. live from 0. also coming up at least 5 palestinians have been killed and others injured during raids. my israeli forces in the occupied west bank. molly, as prime minister says his nation feels abandoned by the passing french troops as russia defends the.