shows you the issues that are important to us we have also approved two budgets for twenty eight thousand and twenty eight nineteen in the last four months and perhaps i can just say. that the fact that we now have a balanced budget seems to be the new normal. thing does of course require a great deal of effort. and i think what we've achieved in doing this is that the section of the budget that is there to service debts has dropped the night we had to pay sixteen point seven percent just a service that is. now. under very different conditions and different interest rates is just five point five percent for the debts and next year or maybe even at the end of this year we will have achieved sixty percent of our overall debt level which is important because it is the criteria for the future of the masturbation treaties because a country with such demographic changes as germany is experiencing cannot have high

levels of sovereign debt so these are very good. examples of success forty billion euros more will be available in this term of the german government for measures for our citizens we have been focusing on our family legislation where we've increased the child allowance and tax free some for children as well and then transitioning from. full part time work into full time work is something we're promoting as well and we're working on a lot to improve the quality of conditioning in child care for children who are not yet in school. and once again we've been able to increase pension payments and at the same time we need to ensure that tension system is sustainable for the future which is why we've set up a committee dedicated to this as well as many other committees that we've also set up. this committee will present

a report by twenty twenty looking at pension developments and how the pension system will continue to develop to twenty twenty five first these are issues that are very important issues that affect people's lives i recently went to a nursing home in the last few days and i can say that we have three ministries the health ministry responsible for the nursing care the labor ministry and the family ministry have all joined forces to focus on prioritizing both the working conditions in nursing care staffing ratios and we have an act that says that thirteen thousand new positions need to be paid for and built and we're going to be changing our training system to increase the abstract city of sickly geriatric nursing care and now nationally this is not complete there are many other measures that we have and are continuing to tackle in the social sphere but it

gives you a sense of what we've already done and what's on the cards we've also focused on the whole area of the digital agenda we have got a change that we've made in the structures in a german government you know the chancellor's office we have a coordinating function with that under section for digital affairs we've also created a digital cabinet which is met once we're going to have a closed session as well and have a digital council that will advise us as the german government. and cohesion major challenges facing us apart from the foreign policy challenges we face and you'll be aware of the fact that we have engaged very intensely with europe not least with german french cooperation and the job of holding europe together. allowing europe to work in ways that are significant to the entire globe i think that will become increasingly important in the years to come i would. go into any

detail about that here. but i will conclude at this point and just say that i very much look forward to taking your questions sound will do my best to answer them for you. yes and see the people are raising their hands yes we've got eighty minutes to name now you couldn't from now mr think i noticed first so let's start with you and trying no down everyone else in the meantime. this is just like to ask a question about the us president. and we have seen that he doesn't agree to any commitment is made not in writing or verbal e. i'm going to. go home that was. worse than usual from the start of the us.

he was. right if you're just joining us you've been watching our special coverage of a german chancellor merkel's annual summer conference and she did say you know these have been turbulent months but a relatively new government is working to make things better for the german people peter what stuck set out to hearing from her opening statement precisely that just how very angular merkel it was to talk about these turbulent times government just a couple of weeks ago nearly a foot came crashing down she's come under attack from donald trump there's been all so much talk of of trade walls the european union is to badly divided all this is going on of what does angela merkel begin the most important press conference of the year on ordinary people ordinary people's lives ordinary people's concerns and saying we're going to be addressing those people's concerns that's going to be our priority and that is how i want to be judged i thought it was fascinating anglo-american stuff why do you think she chose it to focus on domestic issues in the statement i think there's a lot of people in germany who now believe that the political class. in berlin has

become almost obsessed with the very important issue of migration immigration refugees and what have you and people now are hoping that this new angle american government has only been in office for four for four months will address real issues that are of real concern to their everyday lives all right let's listen back and she still took some questions about transatlantic relations with a. lot of those in the states we believe that we can all profit from this and this is why in an international framework i will continue to pursue this but it's not something you can take for granted in the way we've been used to doing in recent years which is why we have to look about the best way forward and regarding. i would have to say that these decisions that companies need to make on their own it's my personal opinion that the state premier of north rhine-westphalia who is hoping that could be a broad based decision making situation but it's down to them. mr berman.

i'd be interested in knowing what expectations you have of the immigration law. are we just going to be setting up the status quo in the snow. or is it just going to bring together all of the existing regulations in a new way or is it going to be something that's actually quite new like a point based system such as you see in other countries as it were to be told to come in on it because we have not yet not abated the methods but the zoo killed in worker immigration law doesn't just pull things together. it's also going to be a little options for recruiting and. people with the kind of skill sets that we need in germany which we don't have at the moment it's going to kill the project which is why i think it's important that we have said we want to get it up and

running by the end of the yeah but why it's important well might be because germany despite the free agent of workers in the european union where hundreds of thousands of workers come to germany every year we still have a. scarcity of skilled workers and just by the blue cards and being here good for it which makes it possible to create skilled workers but particularly in the simpler professions in some cases there is a great lack of skills workers a real bottleneck which is why i think this is actually really healthy and also i feel that it's a piece in the puzzle that's missing when it comes to combat in a legal migration with the countries in the western balkans for example we've found very good the odd regulations declaring them to say countries of origin so that the person applying for asylum can be dealt with much more quickly and decisions made but it's not just about to make a certain deportations necessary or nike

a voluntary reply. tradition possible too but we've also said that if you can present you've got a job in the journey when you go you can come to germany illegally so i think this is an important component that all gone and systems and it can be helpful as a prototype with agreements with other countries so for example the skilled workers immigration arachnoid focuses on our own.