for double pneumonia. israel says it postponed saturday's planned release of over 600 palestinian prisoners because of what it was guaranteed. and germans head to the polls in a snap election coalition last year. dominated the campaign debates. hello, and welcome to talking business.

comes at a crucial time for europe's biggest economy. germany's economy has shrunk for two years in a row, and exporters are struggling. i'll discuss that with these two. the chief economist at the influential federation tape and more infrastructure spending to help them thrive. germany better compete with foreign competition. plus, selling software to science — we'll speak to the founder of a company that's powering many of the biggest breakthroughs in the modern economy. now, this week, we're looking at germany —

but, as it holds a pivotal election, the struggling and politicians argue about the best way to revive of things like immigration. that's led to a surge of support for far—right well, last year, germany's economy shrank by 0.2%. of the second world war, that it shrank for many are predicting a third is on the way. inflation has come down significantly from recent highs, but for most of that time, wages haven't kept up people feel poorer. and for others, it means not having a job. that's the highest in nearly a decade, and means nearly three million

people are out of work. and that's set to rise this year. so, what impact is it having on the election? that's in part because of rising energy prices difficult for many german manufacturers. into the job market. that 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 does, it will be possible to get out

and i think this focus - on migration is really not helping anybody feel more| positive in any kind of way. we can solve any of the other problems in the country. - translation: for me, it's the economy that'sl in polls, the leader of the conservatives is the favourite to be germany's next chancellor. in infrastructure and up spending on defence. so, the big question is how the next government wants so, what does business need

if it's to get europe's biggest and most influential economy growing again? that's the federation of german industries. companies that employ around eight million workers across germany. dr klaus deutsch, welcome to the programme. that the german economy is the powerhouse of the continent, that it's one of the driving forces what went wrong? what changed? actually, the international environment changed, and germany didn't reform enough to cope with that. we have a serious drop in exports overall. we face a situation in which exporting to the united states will become much more difficult. we have an energy price shock that is pretty substantial.

and, you know, after the crisis, costs of energy the board, and that's why you need a big package of government policies to shore up things. at the bdi, you are calling for growth, you're talking legislative period — what would those reforms be? one is on energy, and i think here, the key element is that the run—up of renewables works reasonably well, the electricity grid. the second element is that on taxation, we haven't and we are at the highest level of all industrialised countries, and we need to lower corporate taxation countries, as well. the third element is

that we dodged spending on infrastructure for over 20 years, so we are not and this needs to be tackled with a ten—year framework. to all these difficult choices. and so, the next government will have a big task ahead of the corporate sector, and confidence of consumers billion over the next decade. there is very limited leeway for income taxation or corporate taxation, or environmental taxation, which will increase

a bit over time. a bit of debt to that. but we are talking also, at the same time, at the european level, about allowing a higher the european fiscal rules. that would help, as well. so many people will associate the german economy, declining in the country. that's a structural change in what germany stands for, 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

is stabilising, and the shift to producing fully—electric vehicles or hybrids is also moving fast forward. the problem is that demand is changing very fast, in china, to chinese models and chinese electric vehicles, so, there's never a time in which the automotive and you do see some of that as being also reflected in the production in germany. better than production numbers of cars, because companies but clearly, a negative environment for global exports,

of the machine tool industries, the electronics industries, or the chemical industry in germany. there's the looming issue of tariffs from the us. for germany it would be half a percentage point of lower growth in the first year and z= -: 77 in the second ’ fihfhéée'cérié w third

would kick germany year. it would kick germany into recession in this year year. it would kick germany into recesr itn in this year year. it would kick germany into recesr it would s year year. it would kick germany into recesr it would probably definitely. it would probably lead to stagnation or again below zero growth, in the range of 0-1% below zero growth, in the range of 0—1% in below zero growth, in the range of 0-1% in 2026. below zero growth, in the range of 0—1% in 2026. so this is a matter. " nastier] ' " nastier] iiép'é' ' " moi. hép'é it ' " moi. iiép'é it can serious matter. i hope it can be avoided. what do you expect germany's place in the world will look like? what will germany stand for in the years ahead? well, i think germany will stand for the issue, whether you can achieve the transformation and digital ai—enforced environment, yes or no? and i think that's true for all europeans. a bit, but the services part attached to that if we don't do that,

if we fail on innovation become increasingly irrelevant. dr klaus deutsch, really good to have you on the programme this week. thank you for talking to us. you're welcome. actually grew last year. so, is it a positive sign for the future? is a successful entrepreneur. verena pausder, welcome to the programme. now, it's a pivotal moment, isn't it? to see from the new government? priority of the next government. because, i mean, the overall economic situation in germany is not good. you know, we're in the third year of a recession.

we're only growing by 0.3% this year. and i think it is the number—one topic here in germany right now. into innovation, because i think that's falling far too short in the discussions over the last weeks. and there's also some pessimism, really, about the outlook for the german economy, and we all it can be a bit of a vicious cycle. and optimism to business? it has to. i mean, at the moment, we're world—class in putting ourselves down and telling the world basically that the opposite is true. the amount of private capital and this kind of "made

so that has kind of lost its value. i would like to put that back in place and start telling and it feels like there's a reassessment of what maybe it's a shift slightly away from manufacturing absolutely. do you get a sense that the right skills are available, in the key sectors like ai, software development, but also marketing, sales, teachers, electricians. so germany is dependent on immigration. with the afd, we are sending kind of the signal to the world like, "we don't want you here." and i think we should be saying, "choose europe, choose germany. we're happy for everyone who comes here and helps us,"

technologies we want, we need the people, otherwise and so i hope that that narrative will definitely yes. and do you have any hope that, whatever that new government "we need to prioritise education, skills" — whether that's reskilling or upskilling — "to make sure i think it's...it�*s clear in every study you see, every politician knows it. and i think it's now a matter of acting upon it because knowing it is the one thing, but if visa still takes and kind of want to, er...have people reskill of the big drivers of economic

growth at the moment. what is driving that? what is behind that increase? entrepreneurial times, because when capital 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. were founded just after the lehman crisis in 2009. founders have an idea, they have a team, they want to change the world, they want to make

in 2024, in 202a, the in 2024, the economy was so low over you always have over here. you will always have but you will always ==z 77 whostilli have entrepreneurs who still there. and cables and energy is in place to be able to fuel this revolution. we also know, though, at the same time, that there's a real squeeze on spending — you know, tax revenues for the government are down. where will the money come from to fund this revolution? 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. and we need much more of that so that our funds become larger

if we limit the state investment, we need private capital so funds become larger and companies founded can grow f ,, and” — ~ ”7 ,,., w — g f and not 2 and not go 2 7 7 $5535.50” n7a7sda7g 7 7 and not go nasdaq so we have a brain drain and that we have a brain drain and an ip drain. that we have a brain drain and an ip drain-— an ip drain. people would say the uk an ip drain. people would say i the uk you _ an ip drain. people would say i the uk you can _ an ip drain. people would say i the uk you can find - an ip drain. people would say i the uk you can find a - in the uk you can find a company in 24 hours, it a real business case we becomes a real business case we to say at european level. have to say at european level. a capital market union is top of our priority so we have one

22: 7 market and we european capital market and we can compete. the other thing is "”"¢auga”” 77 7 77 7 77 "qua 77 7ink7,7 7 an initiative called eu ink, the possibility to found a 31:5 "555.2”. ..cor;1pany company and have = 777777 77 777 w 7770} landing it companies instead of landing it in one country and then having to go through regulation, legislation all over again. do you think there's enough focus on political skill too? we put faith into the politicians and from the economy, from other areas of society more into politics. in germany to really bring the best expertise and people rather than thinking that parties are always

going to be the best solution to the problem. the solution will be. verena pausder, so good to talk to you on the a closer look at the packet. gilead and astrazeneca. and they are just some of the big names that it's a multi—billion—dollar company, sometimes referred to as the google docs of research and development. best—known universities are using its platform to the next big breakthrough. now, first of all, explain what it is you do.

let me start with some... the bigger picture. but it has a massive productivity problem, and i believe technology is the best way to fix that. but if you rewind about ten years, go back a decade, that number was about the same. so, overten years, hundreds of billions of dollars in the sciences. meanwhile, costs have soared, and that's where battery dropped ten times. in a decade. semiconductors have got so

we self semicaaductars have set 5a we self driving saraicaaaactara have aa! aa we self driving cars good, we have self driving cars and chatgpt. biotech hasn't that progress. but it's seen that progress. but it's way too important to keep operating like a cottage industry. that's where we come in at benchling. we build technology that makes r&d faster, and i think there's never been a greater need. here with this software? just to paint a picture, creating a medicine is harder and even then, most medicines still fail when they're tested in patients. to help those scientists organise their experiments�* data analysis all in one place, and then feed that straight helped solve. absolutely. r&d organisations in the world.

of big pharma companies like sanofi or moderna. to market that we've helped support from a technology perspective, everything from the monoclonal antibodies re—engineering a patient�*s immune system with things so the first cell therapies for, you know, leukaemias and other blood cancers. in the market. advantage right now? where is it that that successful r&d is being done, and, one would assume, where you're focusing your attention? in biomedical research and innovation and creating, but actually china has been a hot topic um, and it's definitely lit a fire.

so china has their made in 2025 plan where they sort of made it a national priority to be world—class. of dimensions on speed and...cost right now. this is great for patients. patients don't care where medicines come from — faster and more effective. what role does ai play in what you do? because it does feel that sharing information in a document like yours is rather a linear way the big opportunity in medicine is to get ten times... using ai, is io get ten times the number of medicines and to do it faster. but, as you said, there's both a lot of hype so, on one hand, biology is slow and complex and full this isn't like applying al

to customer support. on the other hand, a lot of making a medicine is finding getting a drug to patients involve tens of thousands of reports and regulatory pages of reports and regulatory filings. am filings. i am pretty optimistic a large amount of that will be automated in the coming years using ai. sort of stuff for free. um, now you're in a position where the company is worth several billion dollars. how did you get there? worlds, and that's how the journey got started.

we actually do still give away part of benchling for free. you can just get on and use it. and part of our thesis was that scientists in academia needed we're used at, i think, over 6,000 universities all around the world — scientists, graduate students, postdoctoral students, academic researchers just sign up and use benchling. and then we hope, when they go to industry, on right now is just how much the underlying i'm pretty optimistic for what it's going to do for science, and i think there's huge opportunities of getting them through the process of drug research sajith wickramasekara, really

good to have you on the show. thank you for being with us. thank you so much. bye. that's all for this week. you can keep up with all the latest on the global economy on the bbc news website, and on the smartphone app. until next time, thanks for watching. we've got wet and windy weather on the way for sunday, through the afternoon. that's how the skies looked in the mumbles around the swansea area. the day's top temperature was 15 celsius in nantwich in cheshire. that's about six above average for the time of year. and at the moment we do have clear skies across the bulk of the uk. but over the next few hours, thicker clouds on the way to northern ireland, with outbreaks of rain otherwise, 6—7 for many of you. the wet and windy weather, then, that's on the way

for sunday is all courtesy of this quite deep area of low pressure. the centre of the low is quite a long way to the north—west bring two hazards. one — heavy rain, and across some of the western hills the hills of southern wales. the strength of the winds too. through the irish sea, although conceivably somewhere like capel curig could get quite close to 80mph. localised disruption. those strong winds will blow our band of rain eastwards, working in through sunday afternoon. sunday night, well, the rain continues to push south following to much of the uk, so a brighter kind of day.

down through the day. temperatures about 10—13 celsius, so we're still above average for the time of year. conditions into tuesday. of the uk, and although it will continue to be quite average in london is about 9 celsius. will stay quite windy too. good morning, welcome to breakfast our headlines today...

israel has delayed the release of more than 600 describing his condition as critical. but critics fear there's not enough funding from the government to cover the costs. but only after scotland miss a last gasp kick during a dramatic finish at twickenham. good morning. it's a wet and windy for most with heavy rain and sunday for most with heavy rain and gales sweeping steadily as we gales sweeping steadily east as we go through the day. all the details coming up shortly. it's sunday the 23rd of february. our main story. israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu has said that the release