 As is my want, I'll take a certain distance from the whole question to start off with anyway. And recall that the positioning of Germany in Europe has historically been very difficult. There has been talk over the centuries of a German Zahn-Norweg or a particular German path which would neither be east nor west, and this has been the source of many difficulties for European security. However there was a very important moment in 1952 in March when Stalin sent a note to the Allied powers in Germany proposing the unification of Germany under condition of the neutralization of Germany. Very strikingly this was rejected by Conrad Adonauer, the chancellor at the time. The chancellor opted for what is called Westbindung or the integration of Germany into the Western scheme of things, and this was a crucial moment in modern German history. The Zahn-Norweg no longer exists as a German option. Subsequently there was in the 70s and the 80s an evolution in German policy relating to Russia, the Soviet Union at the time, and in particular focused on the GDR and on the unification of Germany eventually. It was called an excuse me for using German terms Wandel durch Ernährung or change through rapprochement. The change in mind was a double one originally and perhaps at the beginning it was aimed at bringing about a situation in Germany itself where there could be more meaningful unification or at least closer relationship between the GDR and the Federal Republic, but it is extended as it developed into a name also to change the very nature of the Soviet system itself. This was a policy which was pursued by Helmut by Willy Brandt very much under the influence of his chief ideologue as I would call him Egon Barr, and if we look at Egon Barr's approach although he was the chief negotiator for East-West questions for Willy Brandt, in practice he was a very nationalistic thinker and in fact he still is. As well as that there came as a laser stage a great German concern with the possibility that Germany was to become the battlefield of a nuclear confrontation between the East and the West. This was the SS-20 controversy and subsequently there was this pipeline controversy which set Germany against Reagan. Reagan was very much against the facilitation of the construction of a gas pipeline from leading from the Soviet Union to Germany. Germany resisted this US hostility and financed and facilitated the construction of this pipeline which of course has repercussions even today. You could say in a way that the fall of the wall in 1989 redelt all the cards in this pan European theatre, but it might have done so but in my reading of it the West-Bindung or the integration or the binding of Germany into the Western scheme of things very much still stands. There is no question in my mind of any German special pat, but the question is how is this West to be defined. In the original period after the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union the German defence minister at the time, Volker Ruhr, was one of the main proponents of the extension of NATO into the extension of NATO membership to the newly liberated states in what had been the Warsaw Pact Block and he did this under the motto of export of stability as he saw it this was to export stability to what was then called Eastern Europe. It has not been without controversy anybody who is following the events of the last 20 years will have seen that precisely this decision to extend NATO membership right up to the Russian borders is one of the main Russian points of grievance with what has happened in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the Germans apart from Volker Ruhr have engaged in a policy which has been characterized as change through weaving in Wandel durch Verflechtung. This policy has resulted in Germany being one of Russia's main markets in the world. Probably Germany and China are either second or third in Russia's external markets. There are 6,000 German companies established in Russia. 35% of German gas comes from Russia. This of course is particularly important as a time of an energy vendor and a revolutionary turn around of whole German energy policy premised on the rejection of nuclear energy. There are a number of other factors which come into account in the German approach to Russia. The first is German gratitude for the Russian role in German reunification. This is a very important factor in Germany. Germany sees Gorbachev and the Russia Soviet Union led by Gorbachev as the main factor in bringing about the peaceful reunification of the country. Secondly there is German guilt at its role in Russia during the Second World War. This guilt takes the concrete form of willingness to cause Russia more slack to put it in kind of a slang way. And there is thirdly a tradition in the Social Democratic Party of which the current Foreign Minister Frank Falter Steinmeier is a member of being particularly sensitive to the concerns of Russia. I mentioned Aegon Barr already in this connection. But Helmut Schmidt, one of the most important SPD chancellors, is also in this school and many of you will be aware of his remarks recently about the Russian annexation of the Crimea. There is Gerhard Schroeder who is also a former SPD Chancellor who of course is very much part of the Russian gas trade with Western Europe. And it is often mentioned that Frank Falter Steinmeier himself was I think Chief of Staff of Schroeder and people ask well is Frank Falter Steinmeier of the same general approach to Russia. Apart from all this German public opinion is massively in favour of a diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis and very much against a military resolution of the crisis. So in some Germany is very much still committed to change through diplomatic economic trade relations with Russia. In case anybody had any doubt, the leading candidate of the CSU, that's the Bavarian Party for the European elections last week, came out with some disobliging remarks about Frank Falter Steinmeier's attitude to the Ukrainian question. He was very quickly slapped down by his leader Sehofer and indeed Angela Merkel has left no doubt whatsoever that there is no daylight between her position and that of Frank Falter Steinmeier on the question of the Ukraine. So in some the position in Germany with which I personally would agree is that there can be no resolution of the crisis in the Ukraine without Russia. This does not mean that we support Russia, Angela Merkel certainly doesn't take the position that she supports the Russian annexation of the Crimea, but it is clear that Russia has to be made part of an overall European security architecture not unconditionally but under conditions that we can all accept. So that is my reading of the current situation as far as Germany is concerned.