have a chance to express their opinion you have to take the time to ascertain everyone's opinions. and it will always be my approach to say that a compromise is a sensible approach i have always said that compromises are results in which the advantages outweigh the disadvantages on the whole but political decisions are rarely one hundred percent decisions they are often decisions that are made as the result of a long debates and. this debate this cultural discourse is part of the process and i will always say we should make a decision we are in first second because that would be autocratic looks of folks including you. of. your. more. now when you were talking about the n.r.c. you issue you were saying that not only everyone who committed these crimes should

be brought before justice but that one should also carry out some kind of inquiry to work out what went wrong with the law enforcement agencies been. that released. this it was not actually i. don't know if the how should i put this best. to what i think is that what we normally do we did very intensely we had no investigation committee we had forty seven measures that we worked out needed to be put into place and we put them into place within the government and wherever there is a gap or a loophole and wherever we have new findings we will act again so this is not something we can just close the book on it's a work in progress and the question remains and essentially this is a question we can only respond to this by saying you know in the sense that it must never happen again the question is how could such a complex terrible thing taking place. with out the bodies responsible having known

about it why how could they have not just covered it how could they have not investigated it and it is really a very dark chapter in the history of the federal public of germany which is why we cannot close the book on this but we have done a great deal to improve and whenever anyone draws my attention to something that needs doing i will devote myself to doing it. and other question about the and as you. i'd like to know based on your promise how you want to go forward what about protecting sources as well as protecting sources is something you know. but i thought it misses. we have to bear in mind the principle of command sure

ability. i mean i will always speak to people who are affected in the federal states but of course i'm responsible for the national level. and otherwise we would have to talk to the individual federal states and in germany they in some cases are continuing their investigations which is why i'm saying we can't close the book on their. right if you're just joining us your mind you have been watching the german chancellor and i called you all summer press conference before she heads often to the summer break peter she was fielding questions there our political correspondent peter craven with us first of all about social cohesion and this is something she actually opened her statement with to say that her government is trying to strengthen social cohesion overcome division this has become a very polarized atmosphere both in politics and in the public and this whole idea of cohesion was one of the banner headlines for the coalition agreement that helped create the new coalition government that is now in office cohesion was one of the

really big watchwords and it's very much an angle or merkel word cohesion compromise. consensus these are very much anglo-american concepts and the very point here was. the figure that was quoted sixty percent of the population suddenly don't think compromise is important there's a very strong notion there of a very changing german society yeah let's go back to a chance i think she's building a question now about relations with israel i think that the protection of minorities as part and parcel of democracy is crucial and i think that since there's been an appeal to found the state of israel and i know it is to be an issue of course i can understand that this is a very controversial debate but it is an israeli based debate and i wouldn't want to interfere. into marketing on this law this controversial law that was passed the national

assembly all that has just been passed to the disadvantage of arab israelis they would say. obviously benyamin netanyahu sees it a very different way and his likud party but it's interesting just to point out for our viewers that angela merkel is a very very very close friend of israel as she is very much beholden and supportive to israeli policy one of the primacy of period in government that she has germany will always support israel and she made very clear there that israeli politics something she doesn't want to interfere and i want to go back to this point of compromise peter because it was something we were just talking about this really is a month or of michael's that compromise consensus politics is the way to govern here but if sixty percent according to the figures that was quoted are trying to american sixty percent of the population don't think compromise is important that means you're always saying in politics and in society i'm right and you're wrong and there's nothing between us and this points the way towards a much more anglo-saxon style of politics of antagonistic politics me or you ciro

psalm and i think you know that would be a very big turnaround for germany and it's very much a feature of the new germany that has the alternative for germany the tea party the far right populist party in the german parliament saying on a day by day basis i mean the social media we are right angle of merkel is wrong she must go again that divisiveness we're talking about here let's listen back into the chancellor now. as for russia one can interpret this is being a campaign of disinformation and this is. still we know they use it and we are doing everything we can to ensure that we set out the right facts the clear facts the true facts again and again. and perhaps we've done this in the most visible cases they lose the case for example. with our soldiers. and i think we've achieved success with our approach. chancellor

the whole debate about the refugee situation that it really nearly brought the government to its knees i wonder if you can say that you can still work together on the basis of trust with your german minister of the interior who questioned your authority to decide government policy perhaps you have disorder he said the most important word right there it's very important that the government be able to act. and then on that the end of this dispute we did indeed find a common way forward which goes along with the aspects that are important to me that know if you need lateral uncool ordinated decisions being made and no decisions be made at the expense of other. parties this was what was

guiding me in what i did and this is why i thought it had to be factored into my other attention inside government policy and i think that the founding fathers and mothers. did it very well when they regulated that you can only be a member of the government as a minister if you accept the authority to decide to go to the policy which the chancellor has and i think the results of the spirit was we found a way to ensure that this authority to decide government policy is respected and i just on this one step back has been accepted co-operation work well if not cooperation would not work well within the government if this were not accepted. you know peter her opening remarks she said these have been tumultuous months and we can't forget just about three four weeks ago we were talking about the possible downfall of chance america's government remind our viewers what this conflict was

about and what did you make of what she said there was a bit of the immigration crisis one wing of her conservative ranks her conservative party the bavarian wing wanted to go it alone as it were and start turning away people of germany southern border of the bavarian border i'm going to merkel said we're not going to go on are going to go it alone i don't want anybody around europe going it alone that will only lead to the breakdown of immigration policy or caps to the breakdown of europe and there was a there was a clash of personalities between the the interior minister horse a whole for who wanted to go it alone policy in bavaria under anglo-american it was very it was very bitter and you could you can sense that from horse a whole for he's a man who i think is capable of the. grudges and perhaps does and was was really quite a rough and in dealing with i'm going to marco provoked her i'm glad merkel. is so grateful that it all lead to a common way forward after the sparks are flown here so has this crisis then been defused but you said i don't think so i don't think there is

a future basis for trust for word between merkel and say or for both i think that i think the coalition will keep together as a whole for will stay on board until the very an election in october they need him they need him in the they don't want to set back of him having to step down or be fired all right let's go back to the chancellor now. from where i'm standing we have to be able to afford to work with the u.s. because we see them as an important partner. from our perspective we don't always agree with their policies and i think the whole history of trans that antic relations show that they have been plenty of differences of opinion but it's worth solving these conflicts and i hope that we will continue to put our efforts into that which is why i wouldn't focus too much on this choice of words.

so then regarding asylum and frontex policies what do you say about that is. the measure for me is what we set out in our common resolutions like in the last european council before the austrian presidency began and we will have a meeting in september informally where we'll be looking at questions of migratory flows it is important naturally for me that we protect our external borders but my concern and i said this in june after the european council my concern is that this external protection is seen as a unilateral approach and based on my own political experience i would have to say that it will only work if we work together with the countries of origin and you know a prototype would be the european turkey agreement and that agreement was only possible

because we spoke to turkey and this is why we also need to speak to african countries of origin and talk about it with them and i said this at the meeting in june and i feel that this aspect is neglected to a certain extent but we will certainly feed it into the work of the european union and therefore the austrian presidency too and we will be raising this issue. really at. the end they're returning to the question of migration of immigration to the european union and we should say that we were just talking about how much pressure she's been a under here at home but this is also been a point of contention with her european partners as well absolutely have both. a large measure i think germany has come on board with most of the other european countries that they all together want to tighten europe's external borders that's going to be the next big development in immigration politics in europe about in

effect many critics say many people from the ngos in the refugee organizations will say this creates a fortress europe situation and saying that's what we do not want to happen she says we don't want to be just shutting people out and turning away from them we need to be talking to the countries of the northern africa for example and talking about my greater impact and can be managed in a way that is more consensual and more circular three for example the people come to germany they try to go back to their own countries she would do she doesn't want just the creation of a fortress europe this is been a key part of our policy as well and she mentioned in your opening remarks as well that germany is starting to reach agreements with more countries that can be called safe countries where people can be returned to like the agreement the were struck with turkey were turkey become. relatively large sums of money for looking after the well being of several million refugees and keeping them closer to their home to their original home latins for

a time when for example the war in syria is finally over then people could return from turkey to syria the chance are kept emphasizing in this government crisis she was faced facing that germany cannot go it alone that it must work with its european partners how what solution came out of this summit that she held with the european partners at the end of june is it something that we'll see you. me and europe really tighten immigration policy absolutely i think that's you know this is this is the next move now there's going to be the tightening of the external borders very many more controls on the movement to throughout europe for countries or between countries and the establishment of screening camps for section camps across europe where there's going to be much more concentration of the people who are waiting for have to have the. applications for asylum are processed all right peter let's go back out to the press conference now we've talked about this in recent weeks of course we're hardly surprised at the results of this survey about

satisfaction with the government because of course there was one issue very much in the foreground and that was this dispute the choice of words the tone were very harsh in as i said at the start of this conference i think many of the people in this country didn't really understand some of the things that were going on which is why i tried to focus on this once again and said you know that the work that we do is actually not being talked about as a result of these disputes which is why i wanted to talk about some of the things we've actually done which is why and. i cannot say they will never be any conflict in the future but i think we have to focus on what we've actually done the work we've done not the conflict. and what do you think about the invitation that donald trump sent to putin for another meeting. do you think another such summit is meaningful thing to do.

and. i understand that you are limiting some of your travel. sorry i never talk anything about my travel plans i never like to talk about my private travel plans this year. i'm not going to talk about where i'm going on how they either. but regarding your question it i think it has to be normal for u.s. presidents to meet with russian presidents because you know ninety percent of the nuclear arsenal is held by these two countries so for disarmament reasons alone when there are plenty of things that they need to talk about you can bet there are lots of other things that they need to talk about as well as i'm always pleased if the two of them meet but you know obviously why would i comment on one head of state inviting another head of state to come whenever i do talk about it i always say what it's always

a good thing and particularly when these two countries meet in terms they had states and since two thousand and five we have not had a russian president go to the united states of america so that shouldn't be the new normal should it. now or peter we heard the chance that they're talking about the fact that they you know the u.s. president are trump and russian president vladimir putin met in hell think hell think you sorry at the beginning of this week for a summit and there are reports that donald trump could be inviting lattimer putin to visit the u.s. as well she was a scorcher and she could. you know i thought it was interesting her washy picked up on that she then said. they would be able to listen for the two leaders to talk about the problem of nuclear proliferation about arms control because they are in possession of ninety percent of the world's nuclear weapons so she was cautious but she said she put down a marker so this is what i would hope for from such

a meeting if it takes place i believe she's now addressing the question of trade relations with the u.s. let's listen in.