in possession and private, his legal technically recreational use is still against the law. but those have been pushing the benefits of medical marijuana. the original intention that the change in legislation has been loss. gornick winter, high level before the tourist come to toil in the garage, informed them, they would only carried recreational use. but we do encourage medical uses colon and that they can get services and voice from the tar traditional medicine clinics and hospitals. legislation may become a hot topic ahead of elections later this year. as many conservative ties remain opposed to the sale of drugs on their streets. who with the weed business now firmly part of thailand's economic revival could be hard to what route. tony chang l to 0. thank or my christiana ronaldo says he turned down many football clubs around the world to join the saudi arabia is our nasir, he is arrived in riyadh after agreeing to a 2 and a half year contract worth 200. $6000000.00 a year. a 37 year old was

a free agent after his high profile split when manchester united very pores a clause in his contract gives him the option of joining saudi owned newcastle on loan if they qualify for the european champion seek. ah, this is al jazeera and these are top stories. voting will resume on wednesday for a new speaker in the us house of representatives. members held 3 votes, but republican leader kevin mccarthy could not secure enough ballas from his own party to win john henderson reports from capitol hill in washington. something it hasn't happened in a century, haven't. they weren't a valid one. we went to valid to we went to bell at 3. he had 4 volts that he could afford to lose among republicans. on the 1st 2 we lost 19 on the 3rd. he was 20,

so the trend was not going well for him. so the republicans decided to adjourn regroup, will likely reason arm twisting some inducements offered, but the opposition came from members of the freedom quarters. this is the conservative, fiscally conservative injury, pray, daily threatening of the party. russia is blaming its soldiers use of its phones for one of the biggest attacks on it. stroke since the start of the ukranian war, the defense ministry says 89 troops were killed in the new year's day attack on temporary barracks. in my kicker, it says the unauthorized use of mobile phones allowed ukrainian forces to print this to pinpoint the soldiers location. football legend pelley has been laid to rest in brazil. hundreds of thousands of mourners watched a funeral procession in santos, the city where he played for decades. hundreds of tracks are blocking highways in bolivia, with drivers protesting against the arrest of the governor of santa cruz. police

detained louis camacho last week after he was accused of trying to overthrow. then president, evil morales in 20. 19. the philippines president is on the 2nd day of his visit to china. ferdinand mark was junior as met the standing committee of the national people's congress, macos junior in chinese liter. she's being, are expected to hold talks later on when see those are the headlines on al jazeera is always much more news on our website at al jazeera dot com coming up next year. it's inside story. stay with us. the u. s. is always of interest to people. all right, the world, this has been going on for a number of hours with an international perspective, with global audience. how could impact your life? this is an important part of the world, and our view is very good at bringing the news to the world from croatia celebrated the new year by adopting the euro is joining us

a time when the i m. f is wanting of a recession. so what's the head for the european economy and the euro zones? newest member, this is inside story. ah hello and welcome to the program. i'm laura kyle. croatia has finally adopted the euro some 10 years after joining the european union. it's another step in the rapid transformation of a state once part of tito's communist e lobby up. the celebrations might have brought some brief distraction for the you away from the troubles affecting the arizona and for a well facing de economic uncertainty, gracious government to express pride in its adoption of the new currency. but reaction on the streets of the capital zagreb was mixed. i thought that 60,

this is the future, things might get better over night, like we used to think, but this is the future, especially because of tourism and people coming here from the rest of europe was a negative. no sir. i think people shouldn't get hung up on the negative. one is to keep thinking positive thought we joined the xing in area. i'm very happy about that because soccer ball slowly turn into a real metropolitan city for local was her metropolitan garage. missing that watch a definite definitely, as things are getting more expensive fall over the world, it will also happen here too. we can't escape this unfortunately almost. or we'll get to our guests in just a moment. but 1st, let's bring you a closer look at what the euro zone is. it's a currency union created in 1999, but physical coins and notes only entered circulation. 3 years later, the euro replaced national currencies, but not all e u members belong to it. the euro is own, began with 11 member states,

has now grown to 20 with croatia, adopting the currency. the european central bank, the e. c. b is responsible for monetary policy, but it is limited in its flexibility to consider individual country needs. assets, responsibility is of the euro zone as a whole. and now the i, m f is wanting, half of the european union's economies are at risk of a recession. let's bring in our guests now and in rome, leonor poly head of analysis at the center for european policy network in berlin, been iris founder and as to in chief of be any intel in use. and in london, vicky price chief economic adviser at the center for economics and business research by one. welcome to all of you elanora. let's start with you because it doesn't feel like a very good time for croatia to be joining the euro zone. but how much is its

economy against be affected by this switch to the euro? certainly is not the best finding for abrasions. the creation will benefit from entering the euro to find quantity that you are out was a run your credit shut me, it's very much louder. remember, i'm reading the you has on i think not much which will change on the negative side on the country will allow more trade and more choices having to somehow make you make the country life easier. because already technology partners are part of the european union. i'm, i'm not, i'm not saying that it will that much because anyway, even before entering the euro ratio was the radio from how linked to, you know, piano konami's trends in terms of the special would be bad anyway. and do you think this is a good time for the years, which doesn't appear to be struggling to have

a coin? country like croatia join it. i think i'm crazy point of view. is this a good time to join just simply by getting the year they will benefit greatly for economically and so much is that now the, the e c, b is in charge of my re policy that it gives access to, to the country to more than couldn't see that they could see would come in would be available to the banks. they're buying more government bonds with it, which gives the government more money to spend. and you can expect the real estate boom in so much as some of the extra good guys, the real estate sector. but given that, you know, europe as a whole is in a horrible economic position. but it's up in the air and having access to those funds for more that couldn't see, i mean, that's exactly what you need in order to stimulate the economy in order to promote growth for the time is slow down. so i actually think it's probably net net a big benefit for gracious joint now. ok, but becky, where does that money?

felicia come from, who is providing it within the euro zone? well, the 1st thing to bear in mind is that so the you and the european commission have been quite active in ensuring that there is sufficient support to other countries have gone through the cold coven period. now the energy crisis with special funds, which have been raised and put aside for all the countries in europe, and the ones that are benefiting mostly at present have tended to be the southern european countries and possibly now the eastern european countries, if you like, getting a share of this, so next generation you fund the real support that is needed because of course, we now also have the issues relating to russia and the war in ukraine and therefore cutting off of gas and other supplies. so there is a lot of corporation going across and that was of course, happening anyway. as far as the wider e. u is concerned. no for croatia itself course or the money that ben was referring

to is what the europeans of the bank is been doing in relation to quantitative easing all these years. in other words, sort of buying bonds in the secondary market of those countries and ensuring there's enough liquidity in the system to keep them going if you like. and that is special money be that put aside again. even though the finish, the overall package of congestive easing just recently, those extra money put aside for those countries that find themselves in difficulty . so there will be for a while at any rate support going to if question is it a countries like russia, but also of course, countries like italy and spain and greece, which may need that in the short term too. because of course, we are entering a recession, a number of countries, i'm going to need extra boost boost as a result of this because the capital markets may decide that their debt levels are a bit too high for them to be doing it without some support from the c b service, he just left ford by 2 questions by saying that we are entering

a recessive the years and is entering recession. one of my questions was, is it going to happen? because need to talk 1st about inflation, don't we bend? it's soaring across much of the world, just bring it back to the basics for us in the euro zone, why is inflation the buzzword at the moment? and how is the e c. b, how is the central bank intending to address it? this that's a complicated question. i mean, there's a lot that goes into it and the obvious factors that be contributing to inflation already from before the war in ukraine with buyers is the food prices have been inflated. that supply chains have been disrupted by the panoramic, which is main things, more expensive, basic things like food and fuel. and then the war in russia is only exacerbate that by sending a commodity. prices are even higher, and they were already high before that, at the end of the pandemic. and the become another factor playing into this is the

globalization that's been going on. and again, the war in ukraine is just making that was by spending the world into the west and the globe. and all of these things have led to much higher and much more persistent inflation than anyone was expecting. and so for some of my, the see be tackling this or any central bank, it's extremely difficult. i mean, the ship is put through some record high rate hikes in order to try and bring it under control. but that's the classic nature reaction. you. hi, my experience ation down, but those right highest, normally they're designed to deal with inflation caused by monetary problems. it's too much cash chasing to few goods. and that's not the problem here is like russia comes up or in gas prices and it's also the commodities are gone very high. and these are things of monetary policy do not affect. and so inflation is got high and it's going to stay high. so some of my b, b are in a bind, i mean, the only thing you can do is high rates and try and psychologically to the

expectations price established itself is inflation, right? so as i say, it says multiple moving costs and less and it's a very nasty problem. and everybody suffering from it is it isn't it, especially in this brings us back to that perhaps what some might say is the problem of the you're right. you're right in the fact that it's run by a central bank a c b that has to control vastly different economies of across a huge region facing many different challenges. leonora say that italy is likely to be the weakest link here, but it's the most at risk from the e. c. b raising interest rates. can you give us a bit of an explanation as to why and what the impacts of fed to be? yeah, let me start by saying that you're right. as far as what she's concerned is to be withdrawn. but then, you know, when it comes to the european economic policy, you know, they, the innovation isn't completed. that's

a caution. every time you know, even when you're in, you know, you have to hours intervene somehow. the fact of the odyssey is because it doesn't actually appear on me, but he will never see an average countryside is known as an effect. on the other hand, he takes month where you're countries and maybe to find, you know, compromise or look at the back. katrina. or now you know, when we are discussing how to face, you know, your information reduction. but it takes, you know, a lot of time, more than other government to you know, to make a decision. when it comes to me. silly is randy. you know that we took our national that they high. we have been, you know, how they were by no interest rates in the last 2 years. but of course now it's time for me to rise interest rate. but as you know, it was said would be, you know,

i'm even across, you know, you to be on economy. and the fact is that still one of the biggest economy within the union, the, you cannot allow the money to pay, you know, because it's part of does not in the for because it's a big economy within the u. okay, how much when as of a raise interest rate be i was an interesting question. i mean honestly, whoever's been sort of speculating in, in bond markets, you know, some people have done rather well out of the volatility that we have seen in recent months. so that's one, but otherwise, obviously if you have a sense of any sort and, and you're able to get any reasonable return on those assets, then then maybe you know, your savings. in other words, you know, might do slightly better. but in general, it's not good news is not good news for anyone who wants to, boris, knocking useful households. of course that depend quite lot on their credit cards

or any other loans that have it's not good for businesses which have to pay more. and really the focus needs to be quite considerably on the yields in the bond market, which determined also long term interest rates. those have gone up significantly, mainly because of the support from the european. so the bank has now gone from the market. the same thing in the us, the same thing in the u. k. for example. and the long term rates that people have to pay to invest if they want to borrow money and invest, those have gone out quite significantly which suggest also that we are going to be entering a period when business investment is reduced. so it means that growth is going to be affected, not just in the short term, but also in the longer term. and that's why the, the, the european commission and alongside the big countries is trying to ensure that that investment continues with support from funding. perhaps with some lower

interest rates, the weights raised in a combined way across europe for all this projects that europe absolutely needs, such as, you know, doing a lot more on climate change, a lot more on innovation and a lot more and getting itself perhaps more resilient to the types of crisis we're fed by some shane, you know, as centers of excellence for semiconductors and electronics, for example, electric vehicles, batteries and all that, which is going to be required for the future of the world economy. when we look ahead at all the challenges that are out there, the inflation ben is being inexorably linked to the energy crisis, isn't it? hasn't been as bad as was expected or has a milder autumn and other factors have been brought into it. mitigated that crisis somewhat at the moment. yes, immediately them in the gas price is now full and dramatically just the last few weeks. and that's a function of both extremely warm weather. i'm sitting here in berlin and it's like

spring outside. and at the same time, the, the tanks and the energy that's coming in the natural gas to replenish the tax, not russian guests not coming at. that meant the storage levels are very high. and specifically gas prices, which is very important for the energy market in europe have been brought down because you have plenty of gas in the tanks and the weather is very mild. so demand is down. but the way these energy prices work is that we're at the point now where we're heading towards the end of the heat season with lots of gas because the weather is being miles. the fear is if you touch the analyst, that the energy crisis will start up again in the summer or late summer as thanks needs to be refilled. and that last, you know, russia and 185000000 cubic maces in 2021 and only a 12022. and it can be expected to send more than 50 in the sit this year.

and so the price is likely to spike again. so the energy crisis is not, hasn't gone away, but because it's so intimately tied to the weather. it's incredibly seasonal. so yes, it has been missing. but that's not necessarily the end that far from it. you can expect, i mean prices to some last year in the summer when i'm 24 and given the reduction the huge having a, brushing us on its way to europe this year. you can expect maybe the same thing to happen again. i mean even worse. ok. so germany, for example, been reporting inflation for december being lower than was expected. that's not reason for hope yet. no, it's, it's helpful and the low price is now and then with that. so what that does will reduce the pressure in the next season in the next cycle, which will start in march at the end of the season. so yeah, it's definitely good news, but you have to, if you look across the board, i mean, everybody is reporting double digit inflation or close to which is incredibly

painful. i mean, normally that's considered a crisis and we're sort of getting in it now. we're in extremely difficult economic position. and as we mentioned before, people like the see, the don't really have the tools to solve it. i mean this, this is economic shop and it's been shock out. the shock with the pandemic and now the war and what is the prices and looking for the crises, going to continue because this crisis with russia has hit commodity markets and then that's rippled out across the entire world. and where the world bank was predicted 4 percent growth now is predicting sort of flash maybe a global recession. i mean. ready we're not gonna have to place it. and you know, it does the c, b not have the tools to address this because it is governed by strict rules. according to the master tracy, for example, it's not allowed to buy government debt. and yet we've seen that it does by

government debt, and it does help countries in the so called south of the year a certain time and time again. so kind of not the more flexible in its approach, differing the approach to the bigger country to the smaller countries. i think you should be trying to avoid bath in the sense that it does because being one of the last to raise interest right now, you know, in the fact that it will be raising the rates for next year. the fact is that you to be, look at me or be an economy in this one. so, you know, i can just concentrate on countries. on the other hand, you're buying bonds from national and countries. so these are the way, the problem is that, that different across, you know, national governments, within the u, like you have, you know, the not just return very much on of the policy and the other you have which are left by germany. and then the other hand, you have france, which has be moving to

a more like soft approach supporting more like your appealing to ration is like the visual image is found proposed by fast or, or so having a williams approach for words. you know, these regulations, which is not a pacific by germany that i'm trying to germany like when it comes to us problems because those are the 2 that have been leaving, you know, european policies, you know, from that point, you know, enjoying on an external i think at the moment you have kind of internal boxes between, you know, the prize and germany i need support at which point division. on the other hand, i think, you know, the european bank will continue with the interest rates rising interest rate. and i think, you know, the cost of $94.00, special talbot hundreds would be critical. but you know, at the time as i was saying, you cannot allow, you know,

countryside or ottoman. the 3 countries will fade before that to be. and these will have major impact on your ability. so vicky how to stop them from failing? well, you keep supporting them, i'm afraid that's all you can do. and the truth is that the europeans of the bank and the u as a whole, have been very flexible over the last last few years. so during covet and beyond that they have basically given up on some of the rules or the suspend to some of the rules, the had the european stability and growth pact has been abandoned for the time being. in other words, needing to keep the very strict debt and deficit percentages. that's all gone for the time being that you've been. so the bank has been buying circle junk bonds from those governments. so he's been buying a lot of great bonds which where jumped for a while, but there seem to have improved a little bit recently, but it keeps on buying those or has kept buying those through the entire

quantitative easing period. so a lot of flexibility there, there is no doubt in my mind that this flexibility needs to continue. that if we were to revert back to any tightening of the rules again, there is a review. now the stability and the growth is stability. pact with ability and growth back what we'll replace it will be very important and we're talking earlier about creation and what implication gratiot will be in creation having and inflation of over 13 percent right. now, other countries a bit less, but the baltic states over 20 percent of the problem with the europeans bank is that a single interest rate doesn't really work across. in any case, when you have countries, as you mentioned, germany senior reduction in their inflation rate. and you've got a information that tells you that in some countries, inflation is 3 times as high as it is in france or germany. so really difficult, therefore continued support, i'm afraid, is what is going to be needed when do you think that leads us on to the question of

whether the easy be with the or is that it needs a more permanent to speed monetary policy to support the different nations in the way that their own economies needed, that's a very good question. and the thing with the whole you project is that it works extremely well when things calm and prosperous and steady, then it works very well. but even within that, there's always been this sort of distortions. i mean, the size of germany and the power of its economy is in the same, you know, regulatory environment under the c, b, as the vulcans. and so the interest, the monetary policy rate is supposed to fit both of them and for germany, what that means in effect is that the euro is much cheaper than it would be if the business bank was regulated, setting the monetary policy for itself. and consequently, it has this incredible export, i thought because it is very cheap and talking about introducing a to speed. i mean, this is acknowledgment, i think,

of the crisis the moment and the, the plan in europe i think, is just a way for the price go away and then go back to it. i mean, at the moment there's, there's a federated europe. this is a monetary unity, but then even that's not universal within the u. and so it ends up being a fudge. and we've been talking about monetary policy and you change race both boost growth by cutting rates or have growth by increasing rates. but the way the use gets around that is simply by giving countries money. the amount of money that's being spent on supports at the moment is phenomenal. i think the collective, the spend some 700000000000 euros in terms of. ready support and relief for the high energy cost moment. and so you know, you don't have to cut rates in order to promote growth by creating more money within the financial system. you just give it to the countries in cash and all of these programs, which is what's been going on at the moment. that seems to be the plant. i'm in

germany, learners is 1st aid program. a study been in the 2nd one, the same. and then the 3rd $1.00 to $100.00 in so they just hitting with money to wait for the crisis. i mean the, the issue is how long is this going to go on? and i think up until recently the view is being that it will last until the wind. so maybe the spring, but i think now the listener readjusting and they're talking about a long war in ukraine, which will continue to disrupt the energy markets. what is markets for at least another year, and now possibly even. so i think you're right that we got to revisit the, the economic policies. because at the moment the policies are by relief from these crises, ok, patch and not a big structural changes like you're talking about too. just so no big structural changes became the rate the survival of the euro. yes, i think there's enough commitment is been demonstrated actually during the crisis

it survive data breaches to minutes and doing quite well. in fact, one of the fastest growing countries in, in europe right now. so yes, i think it will survive by the need to be thought some of those rules have been too strict and need to be so. all right, well that will leave our discussion today. thank you very much. all i guess for joining us. elanora polly been iris and vicky price and thank you for watching. you can see the program again, any time by visiting a web site that's out there a dot com and further discussion to get to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash ha inside story. you know, they're doing the conversation on twitter. ok, let's add a j inside story from me, laura kyle and the whole team here. it's bye for now. the latest news as it breaks this particular sub station. let's bring in 3 separate

effects. for 6 russians we saw with detailed coverage. they had hoped that the u. s . would relapse water pandemic restrictions this week, which was likely had better there are to getting in from around the world over 3000000 people to talk to the 3 a one sided support for you. and then next week and the national team join the debate. when we talk about climate change in africa, we should focus on education not mitigation on our online, at your voice. it shouldn't be exploiting as what the, what not is being right now is doing everything that is going to benefit them more revealing new perspectives and getting this out of proportion. no, no, his region has power is what is disproportionate. the stream we're a global audience becomes a global community on al jazeera. we tell the untold stories

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