at a crucial time for europe's biggest economy. unemployment is rising, and its manufacturers and exporters are struggling. i'll discuss that with these two. the chief economist at the influential federation and this entrepreneur and head of the german start—up association with foreign competition. in the modern economy.

once the powerhouse of europe, the engine that drove the rest of the continent. but, as it holds a pivotal election, the struggling economy there is top of many voters�* minds. when voters are also concerned about the impact of things like immigration. that's led to a surge of support for far—right politicians, of the second world war, that it shrank for two years in a row. many are predicting a third is on the way. and that is squeezing living standards. but for most of that time, wages haven't kept up and for others, it means not having a job. the unemployment rate has risen to 6.4% —

that's the highest in nearly a decade, and means nearly three and that's set to rise this year. so, what impact is it having on the election? here's damien mcguinness in berlin. that's in part because of rising energy prices and a weakening global export demand, which has made it difficult for many german manufacturers. but the worry is that that's now filtering into thejob market. consumers are spending less and saving more. and that's one reason, really, why the state of the economy is such a big topic in this election. and energy policies. that's why i'm almost certain that, no matter what the new government to create jobs again.

i would really like to go more in, like, a social direction, - a more optimistic direction. more positive in any kind of way. is the favourite to be germany's next chancellor. but i think there's also a general consensus here in germany that the country also needs to invest in infrastructure and up spending on defence. so, the big question is how the next government wants

what do firms need from the new government? across germany. dr klaus deutsch, welcome to the programme. if you talk to most people, they would have that image what changed 7 actually, the international environment changed, now, we have a serious drop in exports to china over the last few years.

and this leads to an erosion of competitiveness across the board, policies to shore up things. at the bdi, you are calling for growth, you're talking about implementing reforms that are long beyond just one one is on energy, and i think here, the key element is that the run—up of renewables works reasonably well, but there is a large investment worked for 25 years at the corporate level, and we are at the highest level of all industrialised countries, and we need to lower

and this needs to be tackled with a ten—year framework. when you talk about that infrastructure spending,

in order to meet the objective, one has also to think of debt to that. about allowing a higher level of defence spending to be accounted for in the european fiscal rules. that would help, as well. as well, with car—making — and yet, that's been declining in the country. the figures suggest, what, from 2017, about five four million by 2023. and what it does for the rest of the world. is it time we rethought germany's role in the global economy? so, i think the situation of domestic production

vehicles or hybrids is also moving fast forward. this is not really a big issue. doesn't have a serious shock over the last ten years, and you do see but, you know, value added and jobs have held up much better

to the performance of the machine tool industries, if the us were to impose a cross of the board to �* on if the us were to impose a cross of the board to �*on imports from the board to tariff on imports from the board to tariff on imports from the european union are from germany, the european union are from germany, the direct from germany the direct fallout from germany would be in the order of roughly 0.5% of the lower growth in the 1st year and a full percentage in year and a full percentage point in the 2nd 3rd year. this would

the 2nd and 3rd year. this would kick into recession in kick germany into recession in this year definitely and lead year definitely and probably lead to stagnation or below 0, and stagnation or growth below 0, and the range of 0 or 1% in 2026, so isa is a serious matter and hope this is a serious matter and i hope be avoided. what will germany stand for in the years ahead? well, i think germany will stand for the issue, whether you can achieve the transformation of manufacturing into an environmentally—conscious and digital ai—enforced environment, yes or no? and i think that's true for all europeans. maybe the pure share of manufacturing decreases a bit, and so, you would see a successful transformation.

or on integrating into innovation, into european production systems, europe will lose out in competitiveness, and in market shares, and production employment, and all the rest of that, to avoid that fate. thank you for talking to us. you're welcome. i've been catching up with the chief executive verena pausder, welcome to the programme. and you're a successful entrepreneur of the next government.

you know, we're in the third year of a recession. about energy prices or taxes — and i would like to put much over the last weeks. self—fulfilling, can't it? it can be a bit of a vicious cycle. i mean, at the moment, we're world—class in putting ourselves down and telling the world basically that we're not good enough if i look at the top talent, we have the world research

the amount of private capital and this kind of "made in germany" certificate, if you want. so that has kind of lost its value. maybe it's a shift slightly away from manufacturing in the key sectors like ai, software development, so germany is dependent on immigration. "we don't want you here." and i think we should be saying, "choose europe, choose germany.

we need the people, otherwise we can have the best ideas in the world, they won't happen. yes. "we need to prioritise education, skills" — that the workforce "is prepared for the future"? i think it's...it�*s clear in every study you see, it is the one thing, but if visa still takes over three months, if you apply for a visa here in germany, if we take so long to accept degrees from other countries now, your report is one of the few bright spots for the...

what is driving that? because when capital doesn't flow as much as in very good times, when you really have to think harder about the solutions, that's when i think entrepreneurs are at their best. if you look back in history, sap was founded in the �*70s during the oil crisis. large german companies like zalando or getyourguide were founded just so i believe this is one factor, but the other one is really that founders don't wait for politicians. founders have an idea, they have a team, they want to change the world, they want to make a new business happen, and then they start off. this happened in 2024 when the

was so low over here. it is economy weeserlew ever here; it is a economy weeserlew over here; it is a great economy wesserlew over here; it is a great sign economy wesselew over here; it is a great sign because it shows really a great sign because it shows you will have a down turns m- but you was always have entrepreneurs still there. a real squeeze on spending — you know, tax revenues we have so much private capital in germany, but we're not allocating it into innovation. we have it in bank accounts, we invest it in buildings, real estate, not even in the stock markets.

here and not all go to nasdaq so that we have a brain drain and an ip drain. you talk about listings going to the united states but also many would it 5 it is j it is far 5 it is far to j a say it is far easier to establish a new company in states it 5 itis " itisinr it is in europe right now. is than it is ineurope right now. a fair assessment to cue—mac it that a fair assessment to cue—mac it is, uk is best practice, you can is, the uk is best practice, you can found a company in 24 hours, which fooncla com oa hy in 24 horas, which is fooncla com oa hy in 24 hows, which is of, fooncla cornoahy in 24 horas, which is of, but it a business case that j a businessfcase that the becomes a business case that the european level solid capital market union is the top of our priority so we have won european capital market we can really compete, and

and we can really corn-peter and the �* thing and we can really corn-peter and the �*thing is an initiative i e-e litigated fl " " litigated eu ” fl 77 " litigated sun; 7 ' w w likewcalled sun; which w w likewcanledw sun; which is really like called eu inc which is the possibility to found a european the possibility to foond’a european and the possibility to foono’a european and automatically the possibility to founo’a european and automatically have company and automatically have access to all other european countries rather than founding in countries rather than founding at in i countries rather than founding at in i country and then having to go through regulation and legislation all over again. on skills forfounders, innovators, entrepreneurs, the workforce. yeah, or at least they should let others from outside, with the best solution, rather than thinking that parties

so i wouldn't say they're ill—equipped, but i would say to the table from different backgrounds, the better the solution will be. thank you so much. pharmaceutical companies — the likes of sanofi, gilead and astrazeneca. and they are just some of the big names that are relying to as the google docs of research and development. at the world's biggest companies and best—known universities

what does your software allow firms to do? biotech is this incredibly important life—saving industry, is the best way to fix that. approved 50 new medicines, many remarkable and life—saving. number was about the same. meanwhile, costs have soared, and that's where we come in at benchling. if you look at other complex industries, battery costs have dropped 10 in the last decade dropped 10 times in the last decade electric vehicle sales to

allowing electric vehicle sales to over the world and to he mgr-ribs assesses “3�*s" got to he mgr-ribs assesses ”37w got so te he mgr-ribs erecteehe ”37w got so good semiconductor sales have got so good the! semiconductor sales have got so good that have self driving cars. hasn't seen that kind of e but is too important progress but it is way too important to keep like a cottage and w w and thatw'ws w and thatw'ws where w and thatw'ws where we w and thatw'ws where we come industry and that's where we come in. we build technology that makes r&d faster, and i think there's never been a greater need. what was the gap in the market you were looking to fill just to paint a picture, creating a medicine is harder than landing a rocket on the moon. picture hundreds of phd scientists and clinicians, generating these vast data sets spread across hundreds and then, you know, just trying to understand biology. so we've spent the last ten years building software to help those scientists organise their experiments' data analysis all in one place, and then feed that straight that your software has already helped solve. absolutely.

some of the amazing innovations that our customers have brought to gene—editing cures for sickle cell disease, and other blood cancers. so we're very fortunate to have been, you know, in clinical trials or in the market. where in the world are you seeing the biggest advantage right now?

so china has their made in 2025 plan where they sort of made this is great for patients. patients don't care where medicines come from — theyjust want effective drugs. faster and more effective. what does ai mean for pharmaceutical research? approved every year. a lot of scepticism. so, on one hand, biology is slow

and complex and full of unknowns, of doing experiments. 0n the other hand, a lot of making a medicine is finding correlations and connections across really big, vast data sets, and also putting to give you a concrete example. getting a drug to patients takes 7:2: of thousands sfihésjénhléf'w w of thousands of pages of tens of thousands of pages of reports regulatory filings, i am reports and regulatory filings, i am confident a of will be confident a lot of that will be automated in the coming years automated in the eonfihgyears of ai. because clearly, in the early days, you were giving away this sort of stuff for free. so we've been at this for more than ten years. lab, so i've kind of been in both

worlds, and that's how i saw isawa i saw a need for better scientific tools and i thought i was equipped start w wwwstarthuilewintw w start buildinthhem. we actually do still give away part of benchling for free. in the world, so if you have an edu email address, you can just get on and use it. and part of our thesis was that scientists in academia needed that has worked out well �* us. we're used at, i think, over 6,000 universities and use benchling. or solving a global problem. that's really exciting, isn't it? the most exciting and most challenging thing going on right now 10x the number of medicines that we get to market, research and development way faster, way more automated, take fewer on society that we can't

even predict right now. thank you so much. that's all for this week. on the bbc news website, and on the smartphone app. hello. so it's fair to say it's a weekend of two halves. and on saturday most of us had plenty of sunshine through the afternoon. that's how the skies looked in the mumbles nantwich in cheshire. that's about six above average for the time of year. the bulk of the uk. to northern ireland, with outbreaks of rain those winds lifting temperatures about 9 otherwise, 6 or 7 for many of you. so it's a frost—free

start to the day. the wet and windy weather, then, that's on the way for sunday is all courtesy of this quite deep area of low pressure. of the uk, but it's a low pressure that will bring two hazards. 0ne — heavy rain, and across some of the western hills that's enough to cause some that's enough to cause some localised flooding concerns. localised flooding concerns. but it's notjust about the rain, it's about the strength of the winds too. the strength of the winds too. now, gusts could reach now, gusts could reach around 55 to 65mph around 55 to 65mph through the irish sea, although conceivably somewhere like capel curig could get like capel curig could get quite close to 80mph. quite close to 80mph. 60mph to 70mph gusts of wind 60mph to 70mph gusts of wind into western scotland. into western scotland. the winds for these areas the winds for these areas are strong enough to bring some are strong enough to bring some localised disruption. localised disruption. those strong winds will blow across the hebrides, our band of rain eastwards, so after a bright and sunny start to the day for central and eastern england, we've got the wet weather working in through sunday afternoon. sunday night, well, the rain continues to push south and eastwards and by the time we get to monday it should be clearing away from south—east england with blustery showers following to much of the uk. following to much of the uk. so a brighter kind of day.

it will remain quite windy it will remain quite windy across the hebrides,

the vatican says pope francis we begin with breaking news from the middle east. of palestinian prisoners has been further delayed — until the release of the next israeli hostages is secured. said: