I'm John Batchel with my colleague Anatole Levin of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Discussing NATO, NATO and the EU, Anatole, Friedrich Mertz, is troubled.

He's not yet Chancellor of Germany, which is the engine of growth in Europe, his last 80 years, and wants to be again.

But he's badly troubled by the fact that he's dealing

with the social Democrats, led by O'Lof Schultz, before, and now they have a new leader, but

they're making it difficult for Herr Mertz to follow through on what got him elected or at least leading a coalition.

They want the usual things social democrats want, increase in the payments for various parts of the economy that are not doing well.

It called welfare in the U the US, derisively.

At the same time, Erichs wants to build the infrastructure,

break the debt limit, build defense industry, and grow again in a new fashion,

re-industrialize or deindustrialize, or go to services. There's a mixture of explanations.

And then a poll comes out where AFD, the anti-NATO, anti-EU, anti-US, anti-immigrant, pro-Russia party, outpull CDU.

Is this a problem for all of Europe or is this local?

No, it's a problem for all of Europe because of course it's replicated to a considerable extent

across all of Europe, you know, this rise of the populist right.

And yes, I mean, the key thing is that Merz had to water down his restrictions on immigration for the sake of

the coalition with the social democrats. And that is very unpopular with much of the of his own

CDU base, parts of which clearly well as they have been but even

more now are moving towards afd um so uh if if merks is is to well I mean I suppose they can survive because they have a majority in the Bundestag

but if Merz is to stabilize his government

he's going to have to get the economy moving quickly and it's not

at all easy to see how he can do that because

...