All right, Alexander, let's talk about the German elections, which are officially set for the

23rd of February. And we are seeing some polling data, which shows that the I of De is actually

gaining a lot of momentum in this election cycle. But the experts, the analysts, they believe that

when all is said and done, it will be the CDU with Mertz's chancellor, most likely in some

sort of a two- or three-party coalition. How do you see things playing out in Germany?

I am going to say this. I think that more likely than not, we're going to see an election

in which the CDU comes out as the biggest single political bloc in the German elections.

But the overall story of this election up to now is that all the big

mainstream parties are losing. I think that's the straight ball we think to say. The SPD,

Schultz's party, is doing very badly. There was some expectations that after the collapse of the coalition with Schultz's peace moves towards the

Russians, some of that might start to come back and might start lifting the SPD. There's

no sign of this at all. On the contrary, I get the sense that it's still fading away.

The same about the free Democrats.

It doesn't look to me as if they're going anywhere, frankly.

And I'm not even convinced they'll get back into the Bundestag.

I think they could so badly underperform that they could actually fail to get represented in the Bundestag.

There is probably always a core of support for the Greens. They will no doubt fall back,

but I suspect there's still about 10% of the German electorate,

or at least the people who will vote, who will continue to vote for them.

So I'm afraid the grids are going to be there.

But Mertz himself is unpopular.

People don't especially like him. He is referred to in Germany, apparently,

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