Welcome to the Euro-intelligence podcast. I'm Wolfgang Munchau and with me, I'm Zuzana Muncheng and Jack Smith.

Today we want to talk about Germany. The German elections are upon us in less than three weeks, February the 23rd.

Things have happened. There has been a very emotional debate in the Bundestag this week, in which the CDU, for the first time, aligned with the AFD.

The theme is emigration, the theme is immigration,

the issue that splits German politics.

Zana, you just wrote about today what happened in France, immigration splits French politics,

and it splits pretty much everyone else's politics, and it's something we are watching with great interest.

This is not a German theme. This is a

broader theme. If you follow the debate in Germany, they pretend as though it's just the CDU,

just having done something, just something terrible by aligning with the AFD. And whatever you think about

this, this is a European or indeed a Western phenomenon of parties of the center right or the Oswald Center right,

aligning with the far right on immigration.

This is something we have experienced and we see pretty much in all the countries.

And it's now happening in Germany.

So certain of these European trends and global trends tend to happen in Germany a little later,

you know, like the coffee shop, Diet Coke and Coke Zero. That came 10 years after Starbucks, that phenomenon arrived in Germany a little later, you know, like the coffee shop, Diet Coke and Coke Zero,

that came 10 years after Starbucks, that phenomenon, arrived in Germany with a certain time.

Certainly the Internet arrived in Germany with a certain delay, at least the popularity of it.

AI may never arrive, but if it does, it will have arrived with a long delay.

So there is a delay of global social trends and global technology trends

arriving in Germany. And that is another one because Angela Merkel went the other way. In 2015,

when she opened the border, she led in one million Syrian refugees, people with a legitimate

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