this is g w news live from bergland germany's political party sign up for government chancellor angela merkel joined the leader of the social democrats to sign a new coalition government into existence it brings to an end almost six months of political uncertainty we will have analysis. also coming up the axe body and his daughter poisoned in britain it's nothing to do with us say the russians british prime minister to resign manning is due to update in parliament at any moment.

i'm sara kelly welcome to the program thanks for joining us. germany's new government is preparing to take office after the participating parties signed a much anticipated coalition agreement the document sense out of sets out the program agreed between angela merkel's conservative bloc and the social democrats it marks the end of long and difficult negotiations that have kept germany on edge the party leaders say that their joint program would address the concerns of those germans who feel left behind. it took them six months to finally agree on this coalition all three party leaders made it clear today that they want the government to last the full term the signed agreement is one hundred seventy seven pages long one hundred seventy seven pages of political policies for germany. the hierarchy in

the new government is clear the leading figure is still on the america following a long run up to the new government's formation she promises things will now continue at a good clip. i think everyone feels that it's finally time to start working a new start for europe a new dynamic for germany new cohesion for our country this is what we have set out to accomplish for the s.p.d. social issues and development are especially important the social democrats struggled for a long time with the question of their participation in a new grand coalition. coalition in germany did not start as a love match. the serious use and s.p.d. although they all and will remain fundamentally different parties will still be

able to work constructively together and probably. the third coalition partner the bavarian c.s.u. calls this a grand coalition for the common people. the keywords job security with the promise of full time employment a basic pension pension credits for stay at home parents and stabilization of pension levels. the opposition parties describe the coalition agreement in negative terms protesting the future government's program. that forty two and there are major gaps in this coalition agreement especially when it comes to future challenges above all. climate protection does not feature in it. mrs merkel has once again been able to use money as a lubricant to build up a coalition a coalition that refuses to set the clear course for the renewal of this country.

do it because i mean if there's one central idea in this coalition agreement then it's been money increased the powers of the state decrease freedom this could actually be the title of this coalition. on wednesday the point is taught will take the final hurdle to forming a government america wants to be elected chancellor for the fourth time. their choice is almost certain and then the new government will be up and running at least that's what the chancellor promised. and from our those promises let's bring in christopher spring gate who is joining us in the studio this afternoon christopher take us through what happens next well on wednesday morning parliament convenes and chancellor merkel will be up for reelection as you know the next chancellor of this country she needs to get what's called the chancellor's majority there are seven hundred nine members of parliament she needs three hundred fifty five yes votes a coalition her incoming coalition of social democrats and conservatives as i think

three hundred ninety nine so it's a formality or it should be a formality we'll see what happens on wednesday and then she's off to the german president he nominates have formally and she's back to parliament where she gets sworn in so it looks like it is a done deal after all but can this coalition last for the next four years is it on solid ground where both sides say they're in it for four years i should point out though the coalition agreement has a new mechanism to two years both sides will have a major review of the coalition agreement so that is an opportunity if it's politically opportune for either side to say we've had enough let's go back to the voters. having said that i think there's a fair chance they will survive for the next four years simply because the outgoing government is the incoming government they've been working with each other for a number of years they trust each other there are personal relationships involved there the difference of course is that both sides both chancellor merkel's

conservatives and the center left social democrats lost a lot of support at the last election so they're both looking to score victories some in the conservatives lurching to the right some in the social democrats are looking to the left chancellor merkel has her work cut out to make sure that those centrifugal forces don't pull her coalition and it was really interesting to hear the rhetoric in fact during the press conferences when we heard these three party leaders speaking they definitely seemed to at least attempt to address that the bleeding support that we saw in the election we saw it especially hard talking about addressing the needs of ordinary people of ordinary germans that that's what this coalition would really be about can they do it based on this plan well there is actually a very fortunate position germany is running a huge budgets plus lots of taxation money coming in they have forty six billion euros to play with over the next four years in the throwing

a lot of that money at these problems the record of the past government the outgoing government which is the same as the incoming government although some of the most ministers are different the record of the past government is pretty good so i think there's actually a fairly good chance that they will achieve at least the minimum of success and having heard the opposition though in our package of they do not seem to agree with that so we will see how it pans out what are the main priorities going to be going forward for this coalition first of all those trade relations with the us that is a fire that needs to be put out immediately then there is europe chancellor merkel has already been talking about strength in europe she's also said she's off to see president emanuel mccall fairly soon so we'll see what comes from those. he's made wide ranging proposals for european reform and of course there's the budget this country is running on an interim budget it needs full two thousand and eighteen budget for this year that needs to be put to parliament and passed you know his very own christopher spring date putting it all into perspective for us the big

danger in politics today thank you may. well we have breaking news now for you here i d w british prime minister theresa may addressing the house of commons on a nerve agent attack on former double agent surrogate scream paul and his daughter yulia she has already addressed the fortitude and calmness as she calls it of the people of solsbury in dealing with this situation let's listen in to what she is saying right now time to carry out the investigation properly hundreds of officers have been working around the clock together with experts from our armed forces to systems assessing all the available evidence to identify crime scenes and decontamination sites and to follow every possible lead to find those responsible that investigation continues and we must allow the police to continue with their work. this morning i chaired a meeting of the national security council in which we considered the in the information so far available as is normal the council was updated on the assessment

and intelligence picture as well as the state of the investigation. it is now clear that mr script and his daughter were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent of the type developed by russia this is part of a group of nerve agents known as no factual. based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world leading experts at the defense science and technology to poetry at porton down our knowledge that russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing. russia's record of conducting state sponsored assassinations and our assessment that russia of the views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations the. government has concluded that it is highly likely that russia was responsible for the act against and you script. mr speaker there are therefore only two pools of oil explanations for what happened in stalls free on the fourth of march either this was

a direction by the russian stage against our country or the russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophic lee damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others this afternoon my right honorable friend the foreign secretary has summoned the russian ambassador to the foreign and commonwealth office and asked him asked him to explain which of these two possibilities it is and therefore to account for how this russian produced nerve agent could have been deployed in salzburg against mr script and his daughter my right honorable friend stated the ambassador that the russian federation must immediately provide full and complete disclosure of the not be chocked program to the organization for the program of chemical weapons and he has requested the russian government's response by the end of tomorrow. mr speaker this action has happened against a backdrop of a well established pattern of russian state aggression russia's illegal and

accession of crimea was the first time since the second world war that one sovereign nation has forcibly taken territory from another in europe russia has fermented conflict in the dorm by us repeatedly violated the national airspace of several european countries and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and disruption this is included meddling in elections and hacking the danish ministry of defense and the buddhist among many others. during his recent state of the union address president putin showed video graphics of missile launches flight trajectories and explosions including the modeling of attacks on the united states with a series of warheads impacting in florida while the extrajudicial killing of terrorists and dissidents outside russia were given legal sanction by the russian parliament in two thousand and six and of course russia used radiological substances in its barbaric assault on mr litvinenko we saw promises to assist the

investigation then but they resulted in denial and obfuscation and the stifling of june process and the rule of law. mr speaker following mr litvinenko death we expelled russian diplomats suspended security cooperation broke off by the true plans on these us froze the assets of the suspects and put them on international extradition lists and these measures remain in place furthermore our commitment to collective defense and security through nato remains as strong as ever in the face of russian behavior indeed our armed forces have a leading role and nato has enhanced forward presence with british troops leading a multinational battle group in a stone year we have led the way in securing tough sanctions against the russian economy and we have at all stages worked closely with our allies and we will continue to do so. we must now stand ready to take much more extensive measures.

mr speaker on wednesday we will consider in detail the response from the russian state should there be no credible response we will conclude that this action amounts to one lawful use of force by the russian state against the united kingdom . and i will come back to this house and set out the full range of measures that we will take in response mr speaker this attempted murder using a weapons great nerve agent in a british town was not just a crime against the script pals it was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the united kingdom putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk and we will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil i commend this state. for thank you mr speaker. mr speaker i'd like to thank the prime minister in advance for advance copy of her statements on this d.p.

alarming attack that raises very serious questions the whole house condemns the suspected poisoning of surrogates cripple and distorted in salzburg and of course we wish them a return to good health and i'm sure mr speaker the whole house will join me in wishing detective sergeant nick bailey a speedy recovery as well no member of our police force and nobody on the streets of britain should ever face such an attack let alone with chemical weapons i thank the prime minister for updating the house the investigation into the shocking events in seoul's brain must reach its conclusions we need to see both the evidence and a full account from the russian authorities in light of emerging evidence that the prime minister has just referred to for now any was deemed necessary for him and his daughter mr speaker this morning the conservative chair of the foreign affairs committee said i'd be surprised if the prime minister did not point the finger at

the kremlin your little members of tonbridge in molding also accuse the russian government to behaving in an aggressive and corrupting way in this country. mr speaker we need to continue seeking a robust dialogue with russia on all the issues currently dividing our countries both domestic and international rather than simply cutting off contact and letting the tensions and divisions get worse and potentially even more dangerous a mr speaker we're all familiar with the way huge fortunes often acquired in the most dubious circumstances in russia sometimes connected with criminal violence have ended up sheltering in london and trying to buy political influence.