 So welcome, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Catherine Meenan and I chair the Germany group here in the Institute of International and European Affairs. We're very fortunate today to have Derek Scali with us the Irish Times Berlin correspondent. Most people, most chairs start by saying he needs no introduction, but I think in case that's certainly true. But I just like to make one or two housekeeping points before we start, both the presentation and the question and answer session will be on the record. And this will also this event will also be on the Institute's YouTube channel. So if I can introduce in spite of everything Derek, he's a native Dubliners you might have guessed studied at DCU and the Humboldt University in Berlin. He's been the Irish Times correspondent since 2001. He covers politics business and culture is a regular contributor to German news outlets. And those of you who may have missed his famous article on how Aldi in Ireland is so much better than Aldi in Germany will know that he is a national figure in that regard. So it's just a year now, since the new German government took over. It's been a very challenging year for governments all over Europe, but I think the German government has had particular challenges across a whole range of areas. So we're looking forward very much to Derek's talk on this. He'll talk for 20 to 25 minutes. And then he'll answer questions. So if you want to ask questions if you wouldn't mind using the Q&A function. If you wouldn't mind identifying yourself when you're doing that. So, Derek, we look forward to what you have to say. Thank you. Thank you very much Catherine. Thank you to the IEA and all of you for joining in. I've seen there's some old friends and new friends and yeah, it's nice to have you with us. We've got an awful lot to get get through. So I'll just jump in but we had an interesting break from from the monotony of war and inflation today. A large aquarium 16 meters high has just exploded in one of the hotels just opposite the Berlin main cathedral so 1600 fish washed out onto the street firefighters. Berlin can't do airports and it now clearly can't do aquaria. So just a little bit of light relief there obviously the the relatives of the fish have been informed of this tragedy. And so, yeah, that was quite an ending the year with a bang and what a year it has been. A year ago we had this three way traffic light coalition in office and yeah they they had they came in promising quite a bit they promised to marry social democracy, social justice with with a green agenda, and then somehow bring in some a little spin on things as well. And they, they, yeah, this is the post Merkel attempt to relaunch Germany and they call themselves an alliance for freedom, justice and sustainability, and they had a very ambitious 160 page program for government. And this was going to include new industrialization. They promised that they would have a new industrial revolution in Germany, you know tapping into the old Siemens tradition by they said look, the world needs to go post carbon and we can provide the technology and the machines to do we will build the machines that will create the post carbon world economies. Great plans God laughs when men make plans and nobody's laughing obviously since the 24th of February and just this weekend that we can come up we can see the effect of the war on Ukraine. In Germany we've got from one direction from the west we've got a ship approaching Wilhelmshaven up on the North Sea coast carrying lng from Norway and liquid and liquefied natural gas. And from the other direction from Poland this weekend we have a deal where Poland will supply the largest refinery in northeast Germany every car and every plane in northeast Germany is fueled by this refinery and it was. It was being supplied with with crude oil from Russia, not anymore it's coming from Poland so you can see in just one weekend fuel coming from both sides. And this is, you know Germany was supposed to be decarbonizing its economy and now seems to be de rustifying its economy and its energy sector, and also its politics, and it's a staggering, it's a staggering pace. I remember, boss Paul Gillespie once remarked to me in Germany said yeah Germany is always like a slow burn, and I've often thought of it like that way it's like a very expensive candle you don't get fireworks the flame just goes and the candle is a very steady flame but what we've seen in the last 12 months, we've seen it and we've seen it everywhere, but by German standards, this is extraordinary pace and, of course, forced by circumstances forced by perhaps missteps in the past. But the corrections and the speed of the corrections by anyone standards are fast but by German standards are are warped speed so I'd like to talk a little bit about the parties I'd like to talk about some of the policies that have changed, and then some person reflections on the German Irish relationship. And politically, it's, it's, it's staggering really. I mean, we have the SPD social democrats so they were, you know, the mainstream center left party they were always emotionally attached to friendship with Russia we had the Billy brand area of the time we had Schroeder Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor Schroeder his policy of transformation through trade and. It is all collapsed it is staggering. As one of the SPD leaders said recently, Europe wants to organize its security now not with Europe are not. Sorry, Germany and Europe wants to organize its security not with Russia, but against Russia, coming from the mouth of an SPD leader that is a staggering change of pace in a staggering area of course the Greens the second party in the government and you know pacifist climate policy and they've just embraced without much force 100 billion special fund and the largest military spending from in modern modern German history. They've also agreed to extend the life of nuclear power plants until next spring, rather than closing in December, and they've agreed to fire up coal coal burning energy plants and the LNG ships are already coming huge burden to environment, all of these things, and they've gone along with it. They wanted Germany to be a pioneer in climate protection, they're just going to have to wait, and yet they've agreed to wait so the pragmatism on the green camp is also remarkable. And the final part of the coalition is the free Democrats the liberal free Democrats. Yeah, I'll get back to them later in the government and the presentation they're kind of the problem there but very briefly they came in promising to end the pandemic emergency spending next year they said we will reintroduce an institutional debt break limiting how much borrowing, how much borrowed money German politicians can give a spend in a year. Instead, the finance minister, the FTP leader Christian in he signed off on the hundred billion special fund there's been a 200 billion stimulus package. Our heating bills in Germany are being paid by Christian Lindner this month, and there's been other stimulus packages, and this this week his ministry has basically been behind the largest ever debt issue for next year 539 billion euro. This is a small state free liberal free Democrat liberal finance minister folks so he still insists that the debt break will be back next year. He's got very creative accountants borrowing lots of money and parking it outside the main balance sheet. And so, as you see SPD greens and FTP they're in places they could not have imagined a year ago we all are but in Germany. It's quite something just this week in the Bundestag. I think Olaf Scholz the new chancellor. He, he said he he he built on his site and vendor rhetoric since February he's created a narrative, which I think it's quite clever he talked about the site and vendor which best translates as a watershed I think. And he said that obviously the war has changed everything. But it's been in his eyes a huge miscalculation for Putin his imperial ambitions, his mania for power, it's all backfired and he said the real story of 2022 is not the invasion but how everyone has stood by Ukraine the courage of the Ukrainians, the solidarity of Europe, and, and it must go hasn't achieved a single goal of its war. I just throw in three observations here and number one, and the remarkable feat just on the energy front there's so many fronts but I'll just focus on energy and you know this time last year 14% of German energy was coming from gas of that 14% more than half around 1% was Russian. And that's all gone and some pipelines have been throttled other pipelines have been blown up. And yet it has managed to completely reposition its energy hungry economy, and keep the lights on. And it's filled up his gas reserves to 100% and that it's taking control of two wholesale gas and porters by anyone stand is that's remarkable and Schultz has really said that the crisis, you know, despite the massive human tragedy despite the huge insecurities, it has expedited Germany to do in months things that would normally take years. And we will hope the war is over soon but we will hope that this will also stand in good stead for for Germany as a major manufacturing power in Europe. Schultz said that Russia got things wrong. I think it's worth pointing out that Germany senior Germans got things wrong on this front twice. First they got it wrong on Russia insisting in what was good for German business. And Russia was very good for German business very profitable for German business that this was somehow good for Germany and good for Europe. And the idea was the more you're trading with people they have no interest in collapsing those business contacts what we've learned when you have somebody irrational heading the state. Anything is possible so they there was such a sense I think now in hindsight that they were lying to themselves that this is somehow good. And it was good for Germany. And I think many senior Germans have realized that they had created an narrative to just suit themselves. So this has been a year of rude awakenings for many of them. And I would also say that I think many senior Germans got it wrong and Ukraine, there's many senior officials who were briefing the Ukrainian ambassador here and other people saying oh well Ukraine will give them a week and we'll we'll just, we'll just pick up the pieces then. And, yeah, the Russian Ukraine is almost lasted a year and I think many senior officials including in shots administration are are using their words. So, that's the crisis on the energy front in particular, but day to day business is continuing in Germany. I think, from my perspective, I think the most one of the most interesting and perhaps even under reported stories because we're all on on a war footing is just how the SPD, Schultz's SPD has stepped up. They spent for the last 16 years there were three times the bridesmaid in the Grand Coalition with Angela Merkel they were struggling to find themselves they never quite recovered from the shooter economic and social reforms that many viewed as treachery. We have Olaf Schultz, a former labor minister governing there of Hamburg. And of course, in the last term he was federal finance minister at Angela Merkel he stepped up and with he didn't even have 100 days to find his feet. And yet here he has he's running quite a tight ship, he has good advisors and and from a from a journalist perspective it's it's quite an efficiently run operation we can argue about the politics but in terms of day to day it's a. It's quite an open far more open than the Merkel era I mean the Merkel ran. She had many qualities but from my perspective she ran almost a regime of fear among officials that anyone was everyone was afraid of saying something, because she demanded trust like to an extraordinary it's actually very hard to find out anything about what they were thinking just to even flag things even ahead of a European Council meeting. And so the government has been the SPD led government has really stepped up it has been quite professional well old machine. Schultz himself has had a few interesting revealing moments at the G seven I was at the G seven earlier this year down in Bavaria and there was a very interesting snippy answer given to a journalist who I know and he just gave a one word answer, or said I've already answered that and he's he's had this a few times and I think it's an interesting character reflection with Merkel you often knew she was the smartest woman in the room. And she probably had. She knew her portfolio and everyone else's portfolios at the table but she never let it show. She would never. She would never humiliate a journalist or another leader, Schultz has done that several times this year and people I know know him closely they say he does often feel he is the smartest person in the room. Maybe he is, or maybe that's a character trait that will trip them up in the future. We'll see. I think a key reason why things have worked so well for Schultz, if you can speak of that in this year of crisis is his party is so quiet the SPD was usually know the cliche of central left parties, you know the first item on the agenda is the split. And yet his SPD he is not the leader as many of you know he is chancellor he has two people running the ship and, and they have managed to keep his, his back clear, there are, there's a very disciplined operation. And I think partly it's because they've delivered quite quickly they had a key election plan which was to reform the welfare, the welfare reforms of the shorter era which effectively crippled the party for years. And for various reasons they were seen as, you know, to neoliberal they were seen as humiliating, forcing people to sort of presented bank accounts and assets. And just being, they just felt it was, there was sort of arbitrary humiliation by the welfare systems we've gotten rid of a lot of that so the party is extremely happy they feel this great mistake of 20 years ago has been corrected. The Greens as the government, I think also despite everything, they've had a good year. Again, the, the two green ministers in government that's Annalena Baerbach in foreign and Robert Habek in economics and energy. And they are able to focus on their portfolio they are also not party leaders the Greens have a rule if you become a minister you have to hand over the leadership so they handed over the leadership. The parliamentary party leadership are doing an excellent job. They have for the force their members to swallow one bitter pill after another, particularly on energy and environment, and that has allowed both Baerbach and Robert Habek, just to focus the clear on managing fast action, a real sense of calm and capability in this. I mean I'm in a Baerbach she was in Ireland last week with Simon Kovni and maintaining a consistent message on on Ireland UK Brexit. We can talk about this later if there are questions, but strong on Iran and other issues and many people underestimate her she was seen as a lightweight. Other all the usual questions that a young father would never be asked and yet she's she stepped up and she's been quite impressive. Robert Habek has had it has quite a good year in a crisis. You know his job is effectively to keep the lights on and convince his party that this is the time for pragmatism rather than principle on energy and the climate. There's a young fellow cap and hand guitar for LNG. There's an image of him appearing to bow to his host. I think that will haunt him forever, but he's kept the lights on his German industry has managed to reduce its gas usage by 25% production hasn't dropped that much so he says the country is now a place to get through the winter so the SPD is calm show shots is in the saddle quickly. The Greens are being pragmatic and not attacking their ministers. And, but as I mentioned before I think the FTP is the party to watch if there's going to be a problem if something's going to erupt in next year, I think it is the FTP. More emergency spending, more money have to be found for things we don't know where things are going on energy prices. And many people many FTP voters are saying what is the FTP for what are they doing government for us where is their profile. And traditionally the FTP is the party of business owners of doctors of lawyers, and it has pushed through some tax cuts including for top earners so it's traditional voters. But it's effectively being a status as it could be it's literally the opposite end of the political spectrum to where it traditionally should be. And Lindner as finance minister he's admitted this he said yes there are certain dilemmas in his role. He's doing one thing as finance minister and and trying to do another thing as party leader. But he said look, I could be ideological I could say none of this was in our manifesto we don't have to do any of this. But that would be nonsense that would be a disaster so he's putting the portfolio and the country ahead of the party. He's, he's still got three years to the next election so people might say he's got time. But, you know, they've had a disastrous year they've lost power in two coalition governments in the federal states, and they were kicked out of parliament in a third federal state so that's a very bad showing. So Lindner is unchallenged in the party for now, but there's a window and that window will close soon, probably within the next 12 months and then they have to start. They have to start showing their teeth or showing their voters that the FTP fingerprints can be seen in government. How is the government doing a year and there are around 44% in polls when you take the three parties together so that's down from a year ago when they were elected it was 52. I don't think that's too drastic considering everything usually can go back can go wrong does go wrong in the first year. And many people are still doubtful that the SPD green FTP traffic light is really a fit. Some others have said well actually for shoulders it's quite nice to have these two parties because they keep each other in check, and if they're going to be rows I think between the greens and the FTP that's where the greatest antipathy often lies. The social democrats obviously have had coalitions with both parties in the past for shows personally I think it suits him to have an FTP man in finance ministry and assuming things calm down within this term of office. And Schultz is much more of a conservative less likely to want to throw taxpayers money at every problem that passes. So having somebody like Christian linear, I think suits him they've been considered quite close in this last year, whereas Schultz had to intervene earlier and Robert Habeck seemed to be too alpha males determined to have it out at every opportunity. Once this year Schultz had to intervene and use his, his, I'm not even sure how to translate the word because he basically blows the whistle on a fight and says I'm the chancellor we're doing this and the discussion, and they've been mixed views on whether that was a show of strength, or a show of weakness. Some people would say it's a show of weakness because if you have to sort of wave your, your red card or your red yellow card so early on in a term, does that really what do you do the next time. Well I've said it was a strategic move but you see it's not all plain sailing for this government but and some people are afraid there've been so many rows that they're sort of burning up energy political energy as a coalition far faster than they would normal times. And so we will see where that leads. And I'm looking at the clock I've got about five more minutes there's so much I could talk about but I'll just take it through some of the other things that caught my attention during the year. And there's been lots of talk of this site and vendor, and this change in. It's a watershed I guess would be the best way to describe it. And but of course this watershed, particularly on the defense front is sapping up a lot of energy resources and energy that isn't you available elsewhere for instance last August in Prague. And Charles gave a very interesting under reported speech I think I report on that most people didn't the government actually people I spoke to quite surprised we thought that was quite a good speech they said, and it was a very good speech. On the communication front I just throw in I mean Charles it's just a million times better than Merkel he's not a natural orator nor was Merkel, but it clearly has speech writers working for him and Merkel, as far as I know it used to just take in blocks of text from various government departments and her office manager were just basically cut and paste them together into a speech, whereas Charles clearly has communication experts working with them and you know as somebody in the communications business it does make a difference. But interestingly enough the Prague speech was also quite clever and didn't get much attention, and he but he made clear to say look I am making some proposals on the future of Europe. These are food for thought he said they're not ready made German solutions. What he was talking about was, and obviously we need to do more to move towards decision making by majority votes, particularly on foreign and fiscal policy, all Irish ears pop up then. He said preserving the status quo was worse than what what, then the alternative because Europe would be a sort of as if it continues down this path to be a confusing tangle and proliferation of opt ins and opt outs multi speed Europe. I don't think we need to this obsession with having a national commissioner for every country needs to go. And he also made an interesting remarks on on this taboo no breaking notion of Brussels issuing debt. And from Merkel this was the ultimate taboo and then she gave in on the covert emergency funding, but said it was a once off nobody believed her. And the Constitution Court in Germany last week said, well you know under limited circumstances, Brussels borrowing debt for emergency circumstances we don't see a problem, which is of course we want to raise huge issues. Germany is prepared and not prepared to bankroll on the European level and shows appears to have made that dependent on movement on fiscal issues. So, if you want Brussels issue debt with Germany's blessing. What about those Irish tax rates, of course we've got the international corporate tax rate agreement, but you know he's, he's open to treaty change, which is new, but he said on a form follows function basis, and where clear proposals offer clear gains. I think that's an interesting change I think it's an interesting pragmatism and Berlin has been more vocal on Poland on hungry. And you remember the China visit huge upset over that but everyone I spoke to have said look China is there. Germany is speaking with its European hat on obviously it's got German business in the back but but he's been quite strong on pushing back against the US idea of this era by polarity in the international order he said, we're not facing a new Cold War, it's a multipolar world we need to find shifting partnerships, and based on the rule of law and human without ideological blinkers. I think that charms very well with with Ireland and that's the last two things I would raise and number one, Ireland in Germany have been pushing a much closer relationship since 2018. And the Department of Foreign Affairs has been crucial in this I mean in a time of amazing upsets and confusion and so on this has been consistently pushed. I think Simon Coveney if he's finishing up as Minister for Foreign Affairs we don't know. I think that is basically been one of his great political achievements he's just remain consistently interested engaged curious about Germany and they've been state visits in both directions, and, and pushing this message of partnerships based on rules based order international law the rule of law, and on a political level business level also cultural level this is a lot there has been a lot of movement there has been a lot of movement there's more to come on that front so I think just from a German Irish perspective, it's the change hasn't nobody I've spoke to have said there's been any dis improvement on things and I think bearbox visit to Ireland. The idea of London was significant. The London trip ended up being canceled because the plane couldn't be de iced in time she spent four hours sitting on the tarmac in Dublin. But I think Irish German relations are in a very strong spot and all credit to Coveney and his team for pushing that consistently. And the final thing I would say and I think it's quite interesting is Merkel she's like the element of the corner now and she. She left office on a high and since then it's been downhill quite quickly, and there's nothing like losing sort of the nimbus of power as they call it here to suddenly make somebody appear a bit like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain rather than the great and powerful She gave her ludicrous interview in June on the stage of the Berlin ensemble theater here the Brecht stage, and she said oh I always knew Putin want to destroy Europe. And then she said oh yes of course I increased our energy dependency and the journalists on the stage didn't ask her if you knew he wanted to destroy you why were you buying more and more gas from him. And then she finally made a concession she she made some starting to make some self critical remarks about her legacy, particularly on Russia. You know she spoke about the circumstances she want to move Germany to a renewables future and Russian gas was always going to just be a bridging energy source but she said yes we should have reacted more swiftly to Russia's aggression in the past we should have spent a lot of time in the defense. And she didn't want to interrupt the plans for Nord Stream to because she said they would have had to legislate against the pipeline and she felt at the time that would have been a very bad signal to Russia. And on on spending and she said well you know the pressure of war has sort of boosted spending on military spending that I always wanted but couldn't get through and when she was asked well why didn't she do more. And she said well there would have been absolutely no political acceptance. And what and then the interviewer asked why didn't you push for political acceptance and then she, she sort of fell back on helmet coal and he said helmet coal. I always followed the helmet coal idea that what depends on politics is what comes out at the end and very much so politics is the art of the possible. And then she said giving a quote giving a rousing speech on the fence spending she meant giving a rousing speech only to end up like a paper tiger wouldn't have helped the defense budget. And she said but we didn't do enough for deterrence through higher defense spending so for me that's quite a telling quite a sad remark that Michael, she mastered politics as the art of the possible. But she didn't do enough she points out some reasons why she was prevented. But there's never a sense that she was pushing to do more. And she did quite a bit, particularly with the Minsk agreement and so on but the sense is that she always did what was possible she always did what was tactically clever rather than strategically wise. So a year on her legacy as sort of the varnish has started to crack. It will be interesting to see if her many achievements are then overshadowed by some strategic errors. And so listen I'm looking at the clock I could go on I've been researching Ireland and Germany, the EC 50 years ago I could talk to you about the rice burger. And I've got so many more things I could talk about but I think at this stage I've had enough of my own voice. So let's get some questions and and we can continue the conversation.