I'm John Baxter with Judy Dempsey. My colleague, she's the Editor-in-Chief of Strategic Europe.

That is an online publication frequently updating opinions in Europe across a wide range

of political voices and NGOs and others about the European Union, our major trading partner

and now involved in a war that entangles the United States' future. And we come to Germany,

always come to Germany, because Osprey Tick was part of the weakness of the European Union.

We learn now, given the portrayal of Vladimir Putin and his promises for decades about how Russia

was looking to work in a great, into the community of nations. That is no longer acceptable language.

However, Germany remains frustrated because its genius was to become a manufacturing hub,

not a financial hub like London, a manufacturing hub, and the energy shortage and the doubts

and the trade tangle about China and its relationship with Russia all raising points that show up

in Germany now and again. And Judy, I'm doing a poor job of summarizing, but I wanted to get to the

point that you have political voices in Germany, especially in Bavaria, that are very loud in

descent. Sometimes it turns on migration. Sometimes it turns on the war in Russia. How should we hear that?

Well, you mentioned Bavaria and their elections coming up soon, and the Christian social union

is doing quite well. But they've had a couple of mishaps and mistakes, given their support from

the Vryval, the free voters, who one of its leaders got into one of the ministers actually

in the government got into a real mess over his past and writing some Nazi sympathizing pamphlets.

But Bavaria is so generous in some ways. It's very right-wing, very consistent. The social

democrats are there, actually, they're coming up very slowly in the greens. But Bavaria is a

litmus test, first of all, the future conservative direction of the country. This is the first thing,

and the second thing is that, you know, Germany is going to an election cycle. There's going to be

a couple of elections in the eastern states and another election in Hesse, quite well off

...