stephen beardsley stephen talk to me a little bit about why this debt question is so urgent for the european union what's its urgent right now for the eurozone those $1000.00 asians that share the euro currency and every nation right now is taking on debt brand as we know but it's a special problem for some countries italy is the one that sticks out right now it has a debt to g.d.p. ratio of 130 percent more than 130 percent actually it's pretty considerable its economy has been stagnant so there are no signs that it's capable of paying down its debt anytime soon and borrowing costs are rising it's going to take on a considerable amount of deficit spending and it's not budget potentially as much as 10 percent which is outrageous it's crazy look at the past. that scares investors and it leads to the possibility that a credit ratings agency could come in later and downgrade that debt basically say this debt isn't as secure as it was before that would scare off investors 1st of all but it could also lead to debt owners banks we're talking about they would have to set aside more capital to prevent in the case of a default now it turns out that since the recession italian banks have spent a lot of money on italian debt so that then puts into question what would have. and of them and they said they had to put more money aside because of a downgrade and that throws them into question and that puts the whole system and the question. like italy and spain asking countries such as the netherlands germany that have good credit ratings to mutual i used to share the corona bonds is what they're called why is that i mean it's a taboo here in berlin isn't it you know it's been a taboo for decades this was known as euro bonds before we've talked about this before let's 1st talk about the current borrowing options that's the european stability mechanism the eurozone bailout fund what that means is that the e.u. will borrow money for these countries that need it those countries will individually take on the debt meaning that italy would still pile on more debts and then it would have to meet a certain series of conditions would have to maybe make reforms that could include painful welfare subsidy cuts or tax increases that would be politically unpopular and that's why countries like italy don't like that option they believe in mutual eyes that sort of like your parents cosigning on a car loan for a teenager who doesn't have the credit yet alternately it false them to pay it opponents say that's not fair they're taxpayer supporters say this is an issue of solidarity solidarity but it doesn't change the fact that we've got a shared monetary policy in the eurozone but we don't have shared fiscal policy exactly and it's a big problem that's been the issue for years this is something that tried to reform years ago as late as i believe last year all of these options sort of fell through this is really what makes this debate so important is the question of how close does this does the euro bloc is the euro zone want to be that they want to be a confederation of separate economies that they want to be a closer tightly knit coordinated fiscally coordinated group and that's really what's at the heart of this debate what should we expect this thursday when the european union leaders get together we're already seeing signs of a compromise we're seeing these proposals coming from spain and france saying that perhaps we'll do something a bit different there's something called a perpetual bond ryssdal but tricky but basically it means that the principle would never have to be repaid from the bonds it would be sort of like but the interest would go to the holder. that would be sort of like dividends from stock so it's almost like an equity but what that means is that the payments would go to those nations most affected and the e.u. would only have to pay interest which would amount to that much but would still represent some kind of mutualization of an obligation and it would still represent a step closer a step further than the e.u. has taken to this point and the notion of would still have to get through the constitutional court here in germany for example so big hurdles there stephen beard's as always thank you and you know october fest this year the southern german state of bavaria today canceled its world famous beer festival over the coronavirus unix october fest attracts more than $6000000.00 visitors every year watts of people sitting dancing drinking celebrating no social distancing large events are currently banned in germany until the end of august october this was due to start on september 19th but authorities fear allowing it to go ahead would lead to a spike in new infections. w.'s bustin hard to he's been following the story for us in munich and i asked him why this is such a difficult moment for. well absolutely it is because you have to understand that for the city of munich and for the people who live here you know if this is much more than just another huge party it's got a really long tradition it's been around for more than 200 years and it's something that's deeply ingrained into the d.n.a. of this city and on top of that it's also safe the imag

stephen beardsley from business hi stephen we know that the pent up because putting a condom is across the globe under pressure does that mean that climate change is no longer really a big priority like it was before the pandemic i think the question you're asking is basically this dilemma between the short term need to get economies going again and the long term goals that were already set out before the coronavirus pandemic happen and that is achieving a low carbon economy especially in places like europe and germany where they've already taken steps towards moving in that direction so how these 2 things conflict with one another it's hard to say it's not hard to imagine scenarios in which they would conflict that you already have the auto industry for example here in germany saying hey would be great if we could get premiums for purchases of cars the government can help us out with out they don't mean just electric cars they mean internal combustion engine cars now a long term goal of the german government is to meet emissions standards in europe and to meet its own climate goals and that means fewer internal combustion engine cars another example might be industry which often complains about the expense of energy costs so magine like steel producers for example these a ton of energy the cost here high in germany because attached to the cost of energy is the cost to build out their knoebels network so if they say hey we need relief from these high energy costs to get back on our feet can you do something here but to someone might say well maybe this is where we can strike a way so you can imagine that these things could start to conflict with one another ok but to what extent is the german government actually saying we're going to provide you with aid but you might want to think about more environmentally. only practice not yet is the answer right now they're focused on the short term how do we keep these businesses alive remember we put everything in an artificial coma here when it comes the economy the question is how do you keep it going and then how do you bring it back to life and so what they've done are things like loan guarantees grants and worker protections none of those have come with strings attached and comes environment we're going to transition to a period where we're looking at a longer term recovery period and how much money that should be spent on recovery there you might see some options for investments some options for trying to encourage certain industries certain sectors to really come about that would help the economy in the long term and also help meet these long term goals that germany and other countries have undertaken look at some of those projects being green projects that could benefit from this invest in those projects going back to industry for example green industry you often hear about the smelting ovens for example a lot of these big industrial processes that are so in are g. intensive there is not quite an industry here to remake that machinery in a more low carbon way if that industry sector could get support for example then maybe you build up the sector to create that and then also it could start to expand and start to have global sales for example so you basically provide the money to create a sector that benefits carbon emissions here in germany and then it has a potential market elsewhere in the world that kind of stuff also building efficiency standards mobility perhaps supporting building out more rail things like that you know potentially you have right here a clear example in times of the german government is about to step in the tons and to help bail it out could be a 25 percent stakeholder it could potentially do some major things there it wanted to i would be surprised but in theory you might see some people actually pushing pretty hard for that but in theory it could do something very interesting and stephen basically from business thank you very much for joining us. now organizers of the postponed tokyo olympics say the games will be canceled if they cannot take place next year the olympics were moved to july 2021 because of the pandemic now the president of tokyo's organizing committee says another postponement won't be an option if the virus is still a threat next year scientists in japan have warned it will be difficult to hold the games unless a vaccine is found. right coming up on d w r covert 19 special could blood plasma therapy be effective in fighting the corona virus.

stephen beardsley from business and he's with us now in our studio hi stephen and it's such a jarring contradiction i mean why is it that farmers are destroying crops while on the other hand there are people lined up at food banks is that right i mean that's one of the 1st things i thought too was we're seeing pictures of people lined up outside of these food banks all the time in a lot of cases some of these products are super perishable i think about the lettuce there and also has that farmer has i think 150 years of lettuce so it's very perishable the odds are he's going to get it somewhere and times can be difficult the food banks are really set up to accept it and there's just so much of it that it's hard to actually deliver all of it even if he were to deliver some of it and so what he's chosen to done is destroy it instead of putting more cost into harvesting it and then packaging it when he doesn't have a distributor to take it anywhere and what we are seeing is that some governments are making bigger purchases of these products and in some cases trying to connect them then with an end user as what kind of products are we talking about here we're talking about things like up potatoes we see obviously right here a lot of potatoes that's happening both in the u.s. and in belgium where there have been more public calls to eat more fries fries are obviously a big part of belgian life anyways but with no terse and with a lot of these shops closed down these potatoes have nowhere to go we're seeing things like milk here in germany that's because export channels like to asia for example have either been cut off or demand has also fallen there and so with a lot more milk on hand that means suddenly that it's worth a lot less to dump to store it that's also tricky storage is always the 2nd question here is a store will how much does that cost so financially what is meant for producers that means that not only are they losing out on their investment terms of the current crop but then they have to pay a little bit more to store so it is a financial hit for a lot of people and then also on top of the. they have to plan for the seasons ahead in many cases they've already laid out money for seeds for small plants like strawberries and the question now is what you do with those do you plant them and then put the time and effort in the money into caring for them when no 1 may want them at the ends so a lot of them are saying they're going to government help and that's why we're seeing more of these government stepping up and saying ok we're going to put more money towards this problem but it's going to be an ongoing question until we really know when there's going to be more demand and that depends on the lockdown measures themselves that's the big question all right stephen beardsley from date of your business thank you for bringing us that story now to some other business news german far much ion fire has so far weathered the storm of the pandemic its 1st quarter results showed revenue and profit gains the latter by as much as 10 percent and that's due to a sharp rise in demand for non prescriptive medications as well as the recovery of buyers agricultural business. sportswear maker adidas has reported a 97 percent dive in 1st quarter profits over last year the german company says corona related store closures in china and other countries are to blame and it says world wide lock downs mean its 2nd quarter revenue is set to take an even deeper hit. and the mood among german export companies is in freefall that's according to the country's economic research institute info it says april's export predictions for german industry dropped from minus 19 percent to minus 50 percent a record low pessimism is particularly high within key sectors like automotive ma