hey everybody peter zion here coming to you from colorado where we are going to talk about
the new german government there is a new german chancellor olaf schultz and he is taking over
for angela merkel who has been in charge of germany for something like 45 000 years
she's one of the longest tenured government leaders in europe
really ever and she took over at a strange time for germany when times were
good now historically germany has um it's had some problems its territory is largely
indefensible it's located on the northern german plane and germany kind of oscillates
between two kind of themes number one it becomes strong and it provokes all of its neighbors to
beat up on it until it's gone or number two it's it's gone it's shattered it's divided
when merkel took over in the early 2000s there was a strange moment in the post-cold war system
where the americans were still preventing everyone from carrying out their own security policies and
germany's traditional arrivals our rivals the brits the russians the germans the austrians
were either neutral or allied or weak to the point that they couldn't act and so it was
this wonderful moment where the germans didn't have to be responsible for any security policies
and no one challenged them on security policies so the germans could focus all of their energy
on politics and economics it has been a golden age and in that environment merkel saw her primary job
to hold that historical moment so she worked on facilitating the absorption of the former east
germany which was her home she focused on holding the russian relationship frozen in abandons so
there was no real movement knowing that if it ever became active again the germans would be screwed
she focused on making the euro a regional reality in order to bind europe to germany and her
traditional foes her being germany's traditional foes would instead have a vested interest in
europe's success she focused on economically integrating germany with all of the central
european countries that had been formally soviet satellites so that all of them became firmly
entrenched into the german sphere of influence and finally she wanted to keep the us involved
but at arm's reach so that u.s policy would not be dominant so that german interests could
determine what was good for europe and what was good for germany and in all of that she
was wildly successful and this very brief moment historically speaking in german history which
probably should have only lasted for three or four years instead lasted for nearly 20. that is a huge
accomplishment and germans will probably be thanking her for that for years to come
but the world still evolved she was able to hold this historical moment for europe
but beyond europe and other things within europe kept changing and that meant she regularly delayed
deep meaningful decisions about deep structural issues that became bigger and bigger and bigger as
time went on so for example europe's demographic picture is horrible as bad as it is germany's is
actually worse the birth rate collapsed in germany almost 60 years ago and so germans are facing a
mass retirement this decade and have absolutely no replacement generation europe's economic model
because of this aging means it's totally export dependent which means that the european economic
model the german economic model are completely dependent on u.s strategic commitment which is
now waning the russians because of reasons of infrastructure collapse and demographic collapse
are becoming increasingly desperate making it increasingly likely that they're going to act to
overturn the apple cart witness what's going on in ukraine and actions that the europeans in general
the germans as specific and merkel personally took in order to preserve the european union these last
20 years have largely removed the euro from global circulation it's really just used within europe
and the americans have moved on europe is just no longer a priority
now addressing these issues or preventing these issues from developing into crises in the first
place that's a multi-year effort merkel expended so much effort on simply holding
the center and maintaining that moment in time that she kept her eyes firmly off of the future
and in the issues that she addressed she wildly exceeded expectations but they left all these deep
structural system threatening issues to fester and now they're all overwhelming more or less at the
same time and schulz is new and he's inexperienced and he leads an unwieldy governing coalition that
must now face all of these issues at the same time the new german government doesn't simply face a
baptism by fire it faces a baptism by napalm because any of these major structural issues
is capable of overturning everything that merkel held together the five of them at the same time
that is a governing challenge that i would not wish on anyone
much less the new guy okay that's it for me i hope everybody is having a great holiday
season and i'll see you next time for germany it's the end of an era and as europe's biggest economy
there are some huge challenges ahead from its increasingly complex relationship with china
to climate change all eyes will be on how germany's new leaders grapple with these
issues but there's one german industry that reveals a lot about the country's prospects
it's cars traditionally the car industry here has been very powerful there have been open doors to
german ministries to the chancellory germany's car industry is a vital part of its economy
with links to government that go back decades how this world-renowned motor
industry navigates the challenges ahead could tell you more than you think about germany's
the future the precision it's cutting-edge engineering like this that has helped place car
makers at the heart of the german economy and the industry has proved a bellwether for the country's
future prospects too since the 70s car exports have risen with germany's wealth and influence
manufacturing is incredibly important in germany it represents around 18
of gdp and of course the car sector represents a very large part of that it's not quite you
know where the car industry goes germany goes but the sector is absolutely crucial to the future of
germany and the future of its industrial model but that industrial model could be under threat
after over half a century of global dominance german car makers are now playing catch-up
and it's not just the car industry that's losing ground in 2000 seven of the world's most valuable
companies were german but in the past two decades that number has fallen to just three how germany's
car makers attempt to claw back global market share could be telling for the economy as a whole
take international relations
almost half of germany's gdp comes from exports cars make up the biggest proportion of this
who germany sells cars to matters it can point to alliances or trouble brewing
since 2016 china has been germany's biggest trading partner
in 1998 german trade with china was worth 16 billion dollars now it's worth over 180 billion
but there's a fear that germany could have become too reliant on the chinese market
for the past 16 years angela merkel has courted china in the name of trade it's an approach that
has its risks particularly now we're in this context of this emerging systemic competition
between america and china at least for some people there's a worry that putting all of
your eggs into the chinese basket might leave you exposed to some of the ill winds of geopolitics
and geoeconomics that might be heading germany and europe's way in the coming years
there is a strong sense that germany's china policy is going
to have to be recalibrated basically on pretty much every single front
germany's new leader will face the same challenge as its car industry
how to keep their biggest trading partner on side without ending up in its pocket
china already leads germany in one crucial aspect of manufacturing
digitalization this is not traditionally a country that has been closely associated with digital
innovation it's going to be a big challenge across a whole range of domains we look at car makers and
it's you know traditionally engineers have been at the heart of what it is that car manufacturers do
making components fitting them together making them look beautiful
the digital skill set has traditionally taken a back seat and that's going to have to change
and it's not just germany's car industry that needs to modernize before the pandemic two-thirds
of german businesses said they still regularly used a fax machine and only one in three german
companies have a central digital strategy just eight years ago angela merkel became a meme
when she referred to the internet as noiland the german for unchartered territory
the next government is probably going to have to be a lot more digitally literate than the
ones that angela merkel has led for the last 16 years and it's going to have to do a hell
of a lot more to translate the rhetoric on digitalization into the reality of fostering
genuine change in this country which has been severely lacking for the last couple of decades
but there's an even greater challenge that could define germany's global relevance climate change
here germany's car industry is a microcosm for how the country will need to radically shift
traditional forms of power will need to be replaced for cars that means a race to go electric
mobility
in is gesellschaft oliver zipsa took over as ceo of bmw in 2019 he's overseeing one of the
biggest shifts in the company's history a commitment to battery-powered cars
the whole car industry is launching a lot of electric vehicles now and bmw is on the
forefront of that i think we need to speed up our efforts to keep up with the electric mobility
demand it's a big market developing of course we want to increase our profitability and with
the right set of components products i think that can be a very solid business foundation
climate change has forced this shift to a greener future but it was american not german engineering
that first realized it an electric car can be the best car in the world although an early investor
in electric technology bmw has now fallen behind rivals in the e-car market other german car makers
were slower still when it comes to fostering innovation the country is still in second gear
although disruptive innovation does exist here germany's leaders could do more to nurture it
let's see the acceleration
that's good sono motors is a startup based in munich they're technically car makers
but their approach is light years away from the traditional brands
what we are doing is we producing an electric vehicle that is equipped with solar cells
they're one of several developers around the world trying to get a solar-powered vehicle to market
their car the scion can share power with the grid
and other cars and comes with ride-sharing software built in their claim is that they're
the only car company that thinks the industry should be selling fewer cars their approach
could upend the industry and their ethos is emblematic of a new way of german thinking
we see ourselves as a mobility service provider it's not only about the car it's
about the whole new mobility concept we're providing caching ride sharing
power sharing a car itself solar integration solar technology we sell to others there's
a whole new approach on how we think mobility should look like in the future
small companies like sono have the vision for a greener future but germany's politics may make
it hard to realize one of the challenges i think that you're going to see in germany
is that the next coalition is probably going to be made up of three different parties that may well
have very different ideas about how to manage the climate transition the sort of consensus-oriented
approach that's deeply ingrained in germany may not look like it is particularly well suited to
manage this extraordinary industrial transition that we're going to have to bring about in the
years ahead so that's going to mean a very very big role to the next chancellor and as
efforts to digitize continue germany's new leader should plan for a workforce in need of upskilling
we're going to have a massive ramp up of jobs in the battery manufacturing sector
we're going to have a huge demand for coders sort of digital skills
and commented decline in the demand for engineering skills that we've seen
and as china's mic grows germany will have to be more careful about who it gets into bed with one
of the things i think for example that you're going to see in the next legislative period
is real investment in europe's ability to stand on its own two feet to ensure that
it is not excessively exposed to the risks that could come from a stepping up of the strategic
competition between america and china angela merkel was careful not to scare voters with talk
of transformation but that's left germany's new leaders with a lot to do germany has to do better
right we have those very big companies those very big players here but they aren't the disrupter the
driver behind in innovation disruption comes always from new young companies which drive change
german startups rarely grow into tech giants without making changes germany risks losing
competitiveness throughout its economy there's a nice german word zuccumbed feyer kite which
is roughly translated as the ability to face the future lots of people looking at these challenges
of starting to wonder how the const [ __ ] germany really is and this really is going
to be a big challenge not only for the next chancellor but for the government that he or
she is going to lead because a lot of people think that germany isn't really ready and that it will
need to act quite quickly across a whole range of domains in order to meet these challenges head on
you