. >> i'm not sure if he will do well against mrs. merkel. she is doing a great job. >> for the spd, a tough decision is now out of the way, and the real race has just begun. >> is the former finance minister chancellor material? for some insight, let's turn to our political correspondent. peter, what was his main message at the news conference today? >> the main message was that he wants an outright victory in next autumn's election. he does not want to just press social democrats to do better than last time of the time before, but nevertheless end up as second-best as the junior coalition partner in another grand coalition government, the kind of government we had in germany from 2005 through 2009 with steinbruck as finance he says he wants to forge a coalition between social democrats and greens, which he believes will be strong enough to oust merkel's government. liberals are in disarray at this point, so that is a problem for angela merkel. he wants to oust the current government and with it angela merkel, and that would be -- that would

of brussels in general also the prime minister has been doing so and always been a close ally of mrs merkel and supporting the germans in what they're doing to. you and you are turning into. a transfer union where the northern part of you is paying for the southern part and we see that our voters now are increasingly getting suspicious of all this in trying to get away from it so i think it's going to be very difficult not only the election today but it particularly the day after talking about dutch taxpayers that angry by continued belt tightening damaging their wealth and pensions while billions are going to struggling here as our members are people going to continue taking that. you see just give one example in the netherlands to go on to increase the retirement age from sixty five to sixty seven where from just recently reduces the retirement age from sixty two to sixty so people in the netherlands get the impression that they have to work longer in order to subsidize the reduction of the retirement age in france so these are all things that are not putting for helping forward any idea

of brussels in general also the prime minister has been doing so and always been a close ally of mrs merkel in supporting the germans they what they're doing trying to prevent the european union turning into a transfer union where the northern part of europe is paying for the southern part and we see that our voters now arc increasingly getting suspicious of all this in trying to get away from it in the netherlands they're going to increase the retirement age from sixty five to sixty seven per from just recently reduces the retirement age from sixty two to sixty so people in the netherlands get the impression that they have to work longer in order to subsidize the reduction of the retirement dates in france so these are all things that are not putting for helping forward any idea of a common european union because some people have the idea they are paying for the others they are paying their bills and in france in particular some politicians have the idea that they can do whatever they want because it's the germans who will have to pay and where the germans will also come the dutch and the

the combination that s place in changes-- exchanges between a person who started physics, like mrs. merkel and the modest economies may be productive. >> rose: one of the things you pointed out to me this summer which i particularly found fascinating, there's also culture here, the culture of individual nations. >> it's almost only culture. >> rose: meaning? >> meaning that-- i mean, culture is how people behave, what-- for example, anglo-saxons, the u.k., the u.s., tend to see a bigger role for economic activities in the sense of aggressive management of demand through budgetary aggressiveness, if needed monetary policy. not so the germans, the germans are more linked to the notion-- i sometimes say for gem ans it is-- they see growth as something flowing to the benefit of those who practice virtue. virtue for a household is to engage in a lot of savings, being moderate in consumption, for a government is not to run a deficit. for a country, virtue is to have your balance of payments, if anything, in surplus, not in deficit. now, the anglo-saxons are more accustomed to think in systemic t

you see mrs. merkel unlimited liquidity without the acquit essence, and the pro-european party in the election center has won, and the opposition is more european oriented. i feel it's going to be a muddle through. the real issue, of course, is growth, and the real issue is how do they solve the long term problems, and those are antagonistic to each other. solves problems means austerity, and austerity means growth. how do they sponsor growth in the short term and promise the market austerity and balance, more balanced budgets in the long term? that's the challenge ahead. i think they have enough time and the political will to get this done, but there's challenges. there's a chance of going off the rail there, but i think it's unlikely at this point, much less likely than it would have been a few months ago. >> so your old partner did the right thing with the bond purchase program? others say it kicked the problem further down the road, but -- >> what you have to do in triage situations is you have to st

merkel storing up for the future. ok right so we're going to leave it right there mr john hulsman risk consultant giving us his thoughts on this thanks thank you. ride while in spanish got a loonie a wanted a half million people took to the streets of the regional capital bustling not to call for independence the end already attracted a record turnout has got to none yet struggles under madrid's economic policies authorities they are demanding a five billion euro bailout from central government sociologist scuttles del clauses says the current leadership is attacking autonomy movements in the regions . well the economic situation in. like in the rest of spain is catastrophic and getting worse the difference between this year and last year particularly is that now the point of view of a lot is in the government and it's there a lot more aggressively centralist and and it's and there are a lot more aggressive against sort of the autonomous rights the regions that that feel themselves as nations like a balloon you know or the basque region or a lot more aggressive in imposing that sort of identity upon them the people tha

merkel and hollande on saturday. however, if the demands by the government are too high, mr. enders set they could decide to walk away from the potential 45 billion merger. so it is a difficult issue and job cuts or job guarantees are going to be involved as well as voting or veto rights, as well, whereby voting shares should be kept to about 15% in order to really stabilize the national interests in the common company that is supposed to be created. so we really have to watch it step by step and at the moment, the progress should come on saturday. >> all right. we'll keep an eye on that over the weekend. thanks very much for that. for uhe la one heads to the bright lights of singapore this weekend with a night race. there is speculation the british star could move to mercedes the end of the season when his contract runs out, but when cnbc caught up with the 27-year-old, he kept tight lipped about his future. >> this is the question that everybody is asking and i doubt i'll get a clearance from you, but i got to try. for weeks now, if not months, there's been so much speculat