With regard to the Russian force buildup, we remain concerned about what we're seeing.

And so we continue to monitor very closely the activity there and we continue to consult with our partners.

We call upon Russia to cease their provocations.

Welcome to EU Confidential. I'm Andrew Gray, Politico's EU editor in Brussels.

And that was the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who's also been in Brussels this week to speak with NATO allies, along with the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.

Among the topics on their agenda were Iran, Afghanistan, and, as you just heard, Russia's buildup of troops

near the border with Ukraine. We'll get you up to speed on that with our reporter in Kiev.

And also later in the show, you'll meet a member of the European Parliament who sailed solo

around the world and is now on a mission to get trash out of the oceans.

All of that is coming up in just a moment, but first let's bring in our podcast panel

to analyse a dramatic week in German politics and in talks about the Iran nuclear deal.

So the gang's back together. Hello to Remontas in Paris. Hello all. And to Matt Karnichnik in

Berlin. Hi, Matt. Hello. So let's dive right into it. First topic is the German standoff over who should be

the nominee, the candidate, the conservative candidate to run to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in the

September general election. Matt, you've been following this very closely. It's Lashit versus Soudor,

so the CDU leader against the leader of the CSU, the smaller Bavarian sister party. We're awaiting a decision at any moment. So let's jump

forward for a moment and say, regardless of who gets the nod finally, how much damage do you think

this has done to what they call the union, the union between the two parties? I think it's actually

done more damage to Ahmed Lachet, who's the leader of the CDU, of the larger of the two parties. And I think it's done a bit of damage to the wider leadership of that party, because they came out in strong support earlier this week of Armand Lachette, whom they just made their leader in January.

And I think there was a feeling in the leadership that they could not turn their back on him so

soon after electing him, even though Marco Suda is by far the more popular politician, both within the CDU and the CSU and the broader population.

There was a poll out this week that showed that less than 4% of Germans have confidence in Lachette's leadership qualities, as they put it in the poll. And that's a pretty dismal result.

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