some expert advice and excellent job opportunities starts in new jersey now on korea's for germany, dot com. hello and welcome to ask dw, live on youtube time. good. how about us? and this is the show where your questions take center stage today will be taking your questions and comments regarding germany's coalition crisis with us today is nina. honda, our chief, political correspondent who will tell us what's been going on behind closed doors in the charts are we in various pop potty hates queues over the last 20 for us. and over that, we have cassandra sent from a business desk to walk us through the economic and financial issues at the heart of this crisis. but before we dive into your questions, let's take a quick look at,

well, actually it's a political or quick that's been threatening for months. now, all of schultz has had enough of the fighting to of type one. this minister to many times did finance minister leading a block clause because they live in key to off topic, so many times to be added to surface clientele and body 2 of the top. so many times, if you break by trust with thought, germany's 3 way correlation government is over unable to compromise with ideological differences. schoultz will call a vote of confidence in himself in january. so couldn't even do that as this will allow the members of the buddhist dog to decide whether they want to be the way for or the elections. these of on these elections could then take raised by the end of march at the latest that's for the subject. of the deadlines stipulated in the basic law. this is the mon, schultz sucked chris gently from the free democrats accused shouts of recklessness in the face of economic crisis. so i'm good now is so carefully prepared. statement

from tonight proves that charlotte was no longer aiming for an agreement sustainable for everyone see, but rather a calculated rake of this collision. i'm kind of quickly up with this. he is needing germany into a phase of uncertainty, outdoor funding on the falls, and that was the chart. when the knights of high drama, it was the 3rd wheel and this complicated relationship, the greens, who sounded a regretful tool and one of the collateral damage going on. so we also want to say that there was no need for the night to end this week. don't, didn't house, it was not possible. so the budget code, even though there was a lucian's on the table, is often 2 different solutions. what on the table and the biggest probably would have been to get for the symposium korean there cuz that wouldn't be the right answer at the beginning of the day in response to the election of donor trauma. getting this tag yourself devolved from under trump gives needless to say,

the mood among the opposition center. right? christian democrats this morning. jovial the spot, the prospect to buy minority government, unacceptable. they want you elections as soon as possible. escape will help kind is absolutely no reason. so i wait until january of next year. it's the hold of the vote of confidence. the coalition no longer has the majority in the german blueness style. i'm it via and so the cd you a c, a c on harlem injury group on it on an excuse me. unanimously. demand sucks for august. the chancellor call for a vote of confidence. if at home, you don't need to stay in bay just by the beginning of next week at the latest the aftershocks are not over more talk. so plan, we ahead and clear, but in the end it will be schultz is decision. so a pretty serious situation. we can all agree on that, even before we stop. let's look at the 1st few a question which i think we will have on the screen right now. william kim is

asking. you will be helpful to stop a 1st explaining what the german coalition is for people who don't know. so i assume we all know what it coalition is. most of us do. but why i explained to con coalition for us and why collision is politically so typical for germany or. so to break this down, i think a, you have to look at germany's political system as a whole, which is different to countries where you have the choice between say, the democrats and the republicans and to go full team, a or team be in a national election this is not the case in germany, so we've got a lot of political parties and that number changes all the time. there's a threshold in the bonus tag. so when germans go to the polls, the, they can cost the votes and the political policy they choose. if 5 percent of the dom and both is say, yeah,

i agree with those policies and not policy makes it into bonus talk. and that means that the bonus tag always consist of different parties. and then the question is, which parties can form a government? and we, because we have so many parties in the buttons talk, then we never have a situation where there's just one policies that can rule and everybody else and so position, which means that traditionally the strongest policy then gets to ask, you know, potential partners. and in this case of life choices, government and the social democrats won the last election in 2021. and one, meaning they uh, got the largest share of the vote, but not a majority by themselves. exactly. and they got the largest and mt of they got the largest percentage in the, in the pulse. and that translates into how many seats they get in the blue stock. and then a lot of sorts was in a position to say, okay,

i've gotten the biggest political group, that's the name of that, a group of people that's been sitting in the parliament. and he then i went to the greens and ask them whether they were willing to govern with him and that was still not enough. so they also got the business friendly, liberal depends how you want to look at them, free democrats. and so these 3 policies have now formed this coalition government, um, you have to say because the situation in germany like in many other countries is such that it's guessing the mood in the population as a hose guessing. so if people spend more time in their own bubbles, it's no longer the case that there is some sort of a loyalty. my father is always voted sections. democrats, so i'll vote. social democrats, always people pick and more specifically, according to their own needs or the candidates appeal,

etc. so in this case and left shows how to do it was to the 3 with 2 other partners . so that is the past 3 way call it. oh, there's a color since have been the norm really, in postwar, germany. and it used to be a pretty simple if uh, because we only have the 3 parties in the bonus top, the 2 big 10 pots is the conservative c, u. c, s u and the, the s p d plus the rob a small uh, ftp, the liberals, uh, over many years, that sort of work quite well for, for germany. but now the political landscape has changed because of that. absolutely. and that's exactly what i was touching on just now that people don't have that loyalty to those big 10 policies. there's also been a split of those big 10 parties. the social democrats were challenged from women from people who wanted to more left wing course. and so there was so many people

within the social democrats that said we've had enough of that moderate cost that the rest of the policy is going. so we'll form our own policy. and that then led to the establishment of the left party that was during the time of german reunification and that had a lot to do to do with that as well. and when you look at of what's happening now, isn't the less policy has been as always. so we're seeing this fracturing which is making coalition building a lot more difficult because like i said, we used to, we used to be proud of this. the ability to phone call listed in to essentially get everybody on board and, and have the conservatives rules together with a social democrats and find faults compromises that then everybody has to live with . and also we have to mention this, of course, another big political force. now on the, on the right wing,

that all the other parties will not work with the, for historical reasons mainly. but that also paralyzes in a way, the german parliamentary system because there's a very large chunk of, of the vote that will force the good historical reasons not to be part of any government. so, so i think it's important to explain that the limits the choices doesn't and also forces people together and policies together that really have issues with each of the fundamental political issues as we're seeing right now. absolutely, you're talking about the far right alternative for germany policy and that was as similar the development as i've just described, with a, with a less policies. we sold that conservative politicians. some of them were not happy with how the big tend cd you policy was handling financial affairs. so they said

germany needs to look more at its own currency and perhaps cassandra, you can, you can add a bit to that, you know, in terms of the significance of financial stability and, or the death break and how important that is and, and they didn't want to give up the german national currency, the d mock, and they said, we need to go back. the euro doesn't work. it's a stupid idea of some countries in europe on not stables. so we'll break house if that and they form their own particle that alternative for germany. and over the years, over the 13 years or the it's existed. it's um, we need to fact check that actually, it has existed for that long, but it's a massive political full at the moment because it's radicalized of the use. it went from being a policy that was critical, all financial dealings. you're

a skeptic euro skeptic and germany fast sort of aptitude, but more when it comes to economic dealings, and no audiology as much and then of the as it has radicalized to an extent that now the political thing, cuz in not potty, some of them not even being observed by gemini intelligence authorities because they some of the members of that policy really do make claims that could potentially threaten german democracy itself. and the rise of the alternative for deutschland, for germany were all growing for the last this year. and then the previous years, the last 2 years, germany hasn't ground. and that's been a major problem. a part of this is the manufacturing sector. it's a real heart, the real engine of the german economy making up about 20 percent of g d, p. the manufacturing and construction are associated right now. the economy itself

is only in a milder session. but those 2 sectors are about 2 and a half in about 4 and a half percent new recession. so that's really dragging down the rest of the economy right now. um, i would like to check with the we have a another view, a question. uh there right now, and while we wait, i would like to encourage all of us to uh, comments. uh, put forward your questions for us. uh, we have another one from a view, a cold, young and yon is asking lots of germany and you do to bring back industrial growth in this region and we have strong enough lead us to make tough decision decisions. let's stick with the 1st one. how to bring back growth there seems to be from at least the german standpoint, some squabbling on how to do that. i think if there was a clear idea of say for instance, to go all in on electric vehicles,

that there might be more back in either from voters or from parliamentarians. but it doesn't seem like everybody's pulling or pushing in the right direction. there's a tug of war and that lends itself, we've, we've kind of hinted added a little bit so far. but this debt break his willingness to take out that if there was a consensus about how to bring some of this back, it might be a little bit easier to kind of switch these concerns that folks like christian the have about potentially suspending the desperate once again but right now there doesn't really seem to be a consensus about that. part of it is, is that there's been shock after shock to the german economy in the last few years . i'm sure lucky bought for these before but cove it and then the, the energy crisis following the, the full scale russian invasion of ukraine. all of this has been shocks, but to be honest from a kind of background, historical point of view, this has been a slow moving train. i was reading a report today from 2013 saying for example, that there's not enough skilled immigration coming to germany. so this is not

really a surprise to people who've been watching for a while. and right now there's still no easy solution about how to get some of this box. but it's also, can i just add them to him. deputies, business model in itself is being challenged, right? i mean, for decades dominique economy was growing because i read that and it's just, it just sums it up so nicely. the americans protected us, you know, military. we didn't need to spend any money at all on. because we just said or right we've got big brother and they've got nuclear. so why invest in all military? it's unpopular and we don't like it. and so the americans protect toes and the russians, and those cheap gas and the chinese by all cause. and all of these 3 things in the last couple of years have drastically changed all of them. i mean, just look at china, how they have just said, okay, we'll go oil and we're producing those electric vehicles. and you're right to

complete a right. it's exactly why this coalition collapsed in the end. why and we'll have charts and kristen and i couldn't agree on the right course. so in a way this collapse of the current government could potentially to try and get back to you on this question that could in a way, been opportunity to this side on the one quotes because there's nothing less for companies then if they don't know, okay, can i actually count on the government giving me funding. if i decide to set up a company right, maybe in 3 months time that will be funding because it's, it's a breen tech company. but if they don't know, maybe i should go for tax breaks. i don't know. yeah. and so now our to our, to you set and see that is a big, big deal and not to be underestimate and maybe we'll get clarity very soon. or

maybe later, next year we're going to address that issue in a moment. but i want to come to our next view, a question that is about ukraine that we've just mentioned. it's coming from the us from a, who's a cold go go. and google wants to know, has the ukraine, russia will cause these political and economic problems. if the war has not happened with germany, be more stable and that's, i think, is a very interesting question because german petitions, especially in this government, always kept referring to the fact that things are not going well. but that's all because of ukraine. what's happening in ukraine, and of course, that's a big, a big factor and we would be better off without it. we'd still be getting, letting me food, teens gas probably, and wouldn't have the energy prices that we have currently bought. that is a very good question. would it be different? i think it would be different only in that the timeline might be stretched out of

it. like i said, these are long standing problems. this idea that germany should digitize, for example. that's what something that's been talked about now for going on to decade. and plants has been undone to increase broadband, for example, across germany in the last 20 years. so it's only in a sense that maybe we could have, you know, kept the chickens from coming home to roost a little bit longer. but this is one of a few factors here, right? so image is not enough skilled immigration is one part of it. the other is russian energy, like we've talked about. and again, china seems to have really caught germany's sleeping here, even though we all knew we were taking enough for it to a certain extent in china. caught us sleeping in the german legacy car manufacturers who have just not made the transition to electric vehicles at the same rate that china has. so these things might have turned up the heat a little bit over time. but at some point, all 3 of these factors would have collided and, and just look at solar power as well. i mean, renewables. there was so many small and medium sized companies in germany during

all the reset. they were market leaders and then 70 went to sleep. yeah. 99 percent of solar panels are made in china. now. some of the issue a is the most just read the other day that the china is currently building all those small nuclear reactors that are sort of the next generation of nuclear power, which is c o 2, a neutral and uh they sort of finish the prototype and it's based on the, on a, on a german concept and we'd be stopped that as well all together for, for other reasons. but we have another viewer question, which is, as i'm hearing from my produce assignment that related to that what we just spoke about. and is coming from mountain in germany. martin says the russia, ukraine, well, drastically affected electricity prices. germany hasn't invested enough in new technologies in the past 20 years. how can germany continue to find that?

it's huge, huge social welfare projects. that's a very big question. and of course, i stopped with cassandra while you, there's really 3 options, right? you either raise taxes or you potentially go into debt and i forgot the 3rd option i was going to say, but going into that is part of what brought us here today, right? that was an option that it was just not on the table for at least the smallest coalition numbers, but raising taxes and germany direct taxes in germany already fairly high, especially corporate taxes. that's not really seen as an option. uh so that's currently where we stand. yeah. but i mean that's, that's the also the issue that is at the heart of this conflict in this culture. the actually, the reason it broke up because that's reminds you as a finance minister for sale, enough to freedom across the the liberals, the business friendly potty has a cl slow and wholly almost too not

a can't not cancel the dead break. and the dead break is in germany's constitution, it only allows limited borrowing for the government. so that's an interesting point because there are also exceptions to the to break that are legal. so just look at what happened after rushes, full scale invasion in february and $22.00 love toys came out, gave a speech, and denounced that. we're seeing a huge shift, a huge change. he called the site and then he announced, okay, we're now going to set up a special fund, meaning special that a 100000000000 euros and you got the approval from everybody. right? so that was the 1st time that the debt break was suspended by the government and it was a legal program. last year, a year ago the same government said ok, let's agree that if there is another emergency, we'll take

a very close look of whether we can have another very specific exception from this rule that uh you know, from all the rules that is sort of the the underlying design of the debt break. if you know we find ourselves in a position where we just need to invest. and so this is why they fundamentally agree, disagree, crystal it. and from the free democrats says no, i can't take out any more. that will have so it says, look around us in a we've got laser, nobody expected russia is war against through trying to drive on for so long. it's the said winter, you know, and so the 3 use of extra funding that needs to go in. and they argue with not just being generous supporting ukraine with doing this out of our own interest, because ukraine is keeping rusher at the bank. right. and so we're protecting our

own security and investing in ukraine. and because otherwise we'd be faced with, with potentially devastating consequences. and, and that is something where the coast in lin just stuck to the deck break and lot then lead to the collapse because he refused to. and one thing i think, i believe uh, also uh, was they that couldn't degree. and this refers back to view as a question that live in a said this is a slippery slope. we can look at it every single time. something extraordinary happens. and there's sort of brush over the brake and, and ignore it. and the constitutional cold has, i think, already once ruled that it can't be lifted, this debt break without any really serious reason. and he has suggested it to cops into social welfare budgets. mm hm. um that would that be an option? how would that have been possible?

it seems to me that the big box is a big budget and a bunch and the way the christian there has held the debt break so close to his heart. i think the social welfare programs that's a whole lot shall to is red line is my interpretation of it. and i'm an immigrant to, to germany. i only came here a few years ago and it always sounded to me like the, the break with something that had been enshrined since the founding of the new republic. but it actually was only pass into the night. it's really not that rhonda . and at the time it was passed because of germany had this rising debt, right? it was pushing, i think, into the 8080 percent of g d p ratio. but now in germany has such a low debt to g d p ratio and such a hunger. i think the entire system for some kind of investment. do you think the energy, for example, and things that we would do for in our own interest? it costs money to build these temporary l. n g terminals and those might not cost as much money as a, as a permanent structure. but at what point are those big bills going to get,

get spent in order to make something? that's one last thing, instead of kind of some piece, mail infrastructure here and there. at some point, you're either going to take out money now to pay for a bridge, or you're taking out a loan against that bridge. because as we see these projects just get more and more expensive, the longer that they're pushed out. let me refer to our next view, a question that you mentioned, energy prices, and i think this is related to that from young. again, this is a come back of nuclear angie on the table to low energy costs and compensated for the electrification of mobility and heating politically on the table. come back now or is not at the moment, not while off site is from the social democrats and the greens running the government. they are now of course in a very weak position, but they're still running the government in this minority government until we see

all of sorts of sorts of confidence in the side parliament goods dissolved. we see for us elections when that will happen. we don't know and by late march the latest . and this is, we've been talking about red lines and that was one of the problems in this government coalition that every policy, i'm very clear, red lines, social welfare, absolutely red line for well, i've chosen the search, the democrats deck break suspension, absolutely red line for cassandra this is freight democrats, you could paula with the greens or i don't think so. so and, and you know, they have very strong arguments. i mean, it is very costly to get these things going again, if you've stopped them, an industry is not quite uh, not really interested in. uh, as i just read in the, in a newspaper today yesterday that the leader of a, a very large, a power company actually is not keen on,

on restarting nuclear. and there was already an attempt, as i remember correctly, right after the full scale invasion of you trying to extend the life of some of these power plants that had already been scheduled to be shut down. so i would imagine that did that for 3 months? yeah, yeah, not, not a long time, and i'm wondering if if maybe some of those political players feel like they've given of it on that already the extension. yeah, certainly, i mean, the greens look at what they've done, right. they've crossed a couple of direct lines over the past 3 years already. when you look at what they did, they agreed to building new coal power plans, building. ellen g plans, you know, this is not something that they celebrate that's home, but they've told them, but it says, okay, look what we have to be responsible and, and the question of nuclear power was very, very strong on immigration. also, they trust a lot of their own red lines, you know, agreeing to strict the rules, etc. and i mean, they're arguing that nobody talks about the climate crisis anymore. this was

a huge topic, a couple of years ago. now of course, you know, it's sort of been marginalized, but if you look at a country like france with nuclear power, and if you look at the heat waves that we're seeing all around europe, and we look at the temperature in the rivers that cool these nuclear power plants is phase wise investment if you need to cool these plants so much of the time of global warming, i mean, this is their argument, right? so very expensive to discuss thing that's but i don't think it's economically even wise to do this at the conservative save a different way. so we'll have that discussion by from the table. absolutely. as soon as a new government is as soon as election campaign takes off properly, which was last night i sleep. okay, let's have

a look at the next question and you touched on the red lines that moment ago and they use a j, h 77221. so what's behind the rise in the conservative right wing politics too much change or too much fear and intimidation? that's a question for you. is that both isn't both. i mean, just when i think, you know, we're all human beings and i can sense that in the conversations i have with people with family friends, but also colleagues, you know, we can see that it's overwhelming. the news is on our table in our pocket all the time, 247 and the algorithms work. and the way that they feed is the, the, the articles, the means, etc. that talks our emotions. so of course with consistency being said,

a lots of things that we wouldn't have necessarily noticed. and i think that is being underestimated by politicians across the board. that not everybody who says, you know, it's getting a bit too much is automatically a new nazi. and that is something way, especially the greens, because i've been talking about and so long they do have to come to terms with that reality. they are some of them, a very quick judging people, you know, when, whenever they say, but don't we have problem in some areas. we need to look at it more closely. so on the one side, i would say we've got too much information and not enough people have to patients like you to sit down and listen to people trying to explain context. you know, we see our quick feeds, etc. and then of course, yeah, some, some people are refusing to address problems because it doesn't fit that possible.

i have another question of focus under on i.