well i'm joined now by our political correspondent simon young hi simon people are calling the election of a history late as a shock what's surprising about it i think it is a shock you know the polls are pointing in the other direction these 2 relatively unknown s.p.d. politicians of pushed aside schultze who is the finance minister and chancellor merkel's deputy in the current government so obviously he's very well known and you know they've won now on the basis of this vote of the membership these are left leaning politicians who want to see a change of course and are generally speaking skeptical about the future of the coalition between social democrats. conservatives and so what this could lead to is a change in the in germany's national government let's talk about that these people are critics of this coalition how what is this bill for the longevity of the government right what they have sadie's the they want to renegotiate the coalition agreement that is the basis of the government they want to see much more much clearer social democrat. policies in that things like massive prog

simon young is covering this story for us he joins us for more hi simon tell us what some of the reactions here in berlin have been so far. see me there's been some political reaction we've had a tweet from michael moss the foreign minister he says that europe's energy policy is decided in europe not in the u.s. and we reject interference from outside that's pretty clear it's in line with what we heard from the economics ministry. he was saying that they regret the decision by the u.s. house of representatives and you know they don't want into foreign interference and we've had some other politicians for instance. c.d.u. a politician from miracles party philip i'm told is told. today that he does understand the economic interests of the united states but he said you know this project is pretty well finished already and it should be finished now because it's important for germany simon tell us more about what these sanctions are and what

simon young is covering this story for us he joins us for more hi simon tell us what some of the reactions here in berlin have been so far. yeah the sunni there's been some political reaction we've had a tweet from michael moss the foreign minister he says that europe's energy policy is decided in europe not in the u.s. and we reject interference from outside that's pretty clear it's in line with what we heard from the economics ministry. he was saying that they regret the decision by the u.s. house of representatives and you know they don't want into foreign interference and we've had some other politicians for instance. c.d.u. a politician from miracles party philip i'm told is told. today that he does understand the economic interests of the united states but he said you know this project is pretty well finished already and it should be finished now because it's important for germany simon tell us more about what these sanctions are and what effect they could actually have on the pipeline project. you know the plans from the u.s. are to target those companies that are involved that own and operate the specialist ships that are laying the pipeline in the baltic sea and 1st of all they're going to take a couple of months to verify which companies that exactly affects and then they say they will apply sanctions against executives and senior shareholders from those companies they will be personalised for instance the those people will be refused entry potentially into the united states existing visas that they have will be canceled and they could also be asset freezes and limits on the kind of business activity that they can do in the u.s. so these are personalized sanction measures 7 nordstrom to you we should say it is a controversial project not just for the u.s. it has its opponents here in europe as well does that. well it's a very controversial it has been projects in

simon young is covering this story for us and he joins us for more hi simon tell us more about some of the reactions that you've seen here in berlin this morning. yes i mean as you mentioned there's been some reaction from german businesses the head of the german russian chamber of commerce's calling for retaliate 3 sanctions if the u.s. imposed these measures and there's also been simplistic all reaction we have the spokeswoman for peta out my he's the economics minister here this morning saying that they regret the decision of the u.s. house of representatives they reject any what they called extraterritorial sanctions and they're watching closely to see what the u.s. senate does i believe there's going to be a vote on this measure in the u.s. senate the end of next week senate what exactly are these sanctions and what effect could they have on the pipeline project yeah these sanctions are targeted against the companies that operate the specialist vessels that are laying the pipeline in the north stream to pipeline in the baltic sea and in particular they're directed at. cher's primary shareholders and the executives of those companies. under this law the u.s. authorities would take 60 days to to determine which countries companies are exactly involved and then they could proceed to impose measures like cancelling visas denying these these people entry into the u.s. and even could involve asset freezes or blocks on business activities in the u.s. by these individuals personalized sanctions simon nordstrom to is not just a controversial project from the u.s. perspective we have to say it has opponents here in europe as well doesn't it. well that's true in particular poland is particularly unhappy about nordstrom too because it says it's being bypassed bias and it's also opposed to it on the same ground that the u.s. opposition namely that it says that europe is becoming too dependent on russian gas also i should mention ukraine which is not in the e.u. of course but it to opposes north stream too because it used to be the main transit country for russian energy exports to europe another point is that the european commission has also. been taking measures that could affect the outcome of this project. it's been posed the regulation saying that the same companies should not be both operating the pipeline and selling the gas that flows through it as important because it could massively affect the business viability of nord stream too and there is there are legal battles around th

his tenure. next week the social democrats will decide which of their demands will be tied to the survival of the grand coalition. well for more let's bring in our political correspondent simon young simon this wasn't really expected how people in berlin and germany been reacting to this a lot of the media reaction has been pretty shocked and help raged you know one of the newspapers saying things like you know the s.p.d. is a bowler shooting itself in the breeze. skeptical boss he can get back to the kind of 40 percent support that they had just a few years ago on the basis of this need leadership this is the party once led by the likes of billy brandt and helmut schmidt now it's being led by these 2 new politicians relatively unknown minnows is how a lot of the media is covering some of those are saying the career of finance minister schultz is probably over as a result of this of course he was ousted by these 2 left leaning leaders one out and some of the other parties have also been reacting the head of the left party for instance and congratulations is exactly the right way to go more or less policies as you might expect him to say the market friendly free market free democrats hav