All right, Alexander, let's talk about the rumors. They are just rumors coming out of the German

publication built, which claim that Ola Schultz is about to retire, and the defense minister

Historious is going to take his place. The other report that we could talk about coming out of

Germany, which is related to all of this, is the fact that AEFDE is on the rise.

And the SPD is now openly talking about just a blanket cancellation of A.FTA.

Now, the reports are that Schultz is going to retire because of the problems he has

domestically in Germany corruption scandals and stuff like that. But I think we all know that

most of this is connected to the rise of AFD as well as the conflict in Ukraine and the economy

in Germany, the de-industrialization, and Schultz's

very, very low approval ratings. Berbach and Habek are doing no better in their approval

ratings either. But what do you make of these rumors from Build? Well, I don't think that

Schultz himself has made a decision to resign. He doesn't look to me to be that kind of a person. But it is now, I think, increasingly likely that there are more and more people who want him to go. Now, Bill Saitung is a tabloid, not particularly nice newspaper, in my opinion it does it is connected with important people

in the German political class and of course some of these rumours have been picked up in the

wider European media as well and that suggests that there's now a concerted campaign underway in Germany

to try to get Schultz to go. The important thing to understand is that what they're trying to do

is they're not trying to change course. They're not going to change the policy with respect

to Germany's confrontation with Russia, its support

for Ukraine, because important to figure, though Schultz himself has been, he is not the ultimate

decision maker here. If you want to identify one single individual who probably has been that, it is most plausibly

Robert Habeg, who is the vice-chancellor and the effective leader of the Green Party, and who's

been making all the key decisions, and of of course who's also Germany's economics minister.

And there's no suggestion that Harbeck is going.

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