S8 Ep346: SEGMENT 4: EU ECONOMY AND TRANSATLANTIC TENSIONS Guest: Judy Dempsey (Carnegie Berlin), Co-Host: Thaddeus McCotter Continued analysis of Europe's economic malaise and political uncertainty ahead of German elections. Dempsey examines how EU leadership plan
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
SEGMENT 4: EU ECONOMY AND TRANSATLANTIC TENSIONS Guest: Judy Dempsey (Carnegie Berlin), Co-Host: Thaddeus McCotter Continued analysis of Europe's economic malaise and political uncertainty ahead of German elections. Dempsey examines how EU leadership plans to navigate Trump's transactional approach to alliances, concerns over tariffs and energy policy, and whether Europe can muster unified responses to American demands on defense and trade.
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| 0:56.7 | There was news in these last days of the German economy responding to investment by the government. |
| 1:04.7 | This in terms of generality is called military kinsianism, pouring government money into a policy that is |
| 1:13.0 | generally desired. And in this case, it's Germany re-arming or arming up or participating in |
| 1:20.1 | some fashion in the pledges that have been made about NATO and about Ukraine. I read this as |
| 1:25.4 | positive news, Judy, but that was in English. Is it positive news in German? |
| 1:32.8 | Well, any tiny increase this sort of positive news. The problem is that it's not linked to any |
| 1:39.2 | kind of structural reforms, structural reforms, particularly of the pension system of the creaking health system, |
| 1:45.5 | which is completely overburdened because the immense changes in demography and the increasing |
| 1:52.5 | life expectancy of the older generation. And this is actually eating into the budget. I think |
| 1:59.8 | 35, 40% of GDP is spent on health |
| 2:03.1 | and pensions. It's an extraordinary amount of money. And so Chancellor Merz, Merton, |
| 2:07.9 | his conservative Christian Democrats, along with the social Democrats, have been criticized |
| 2:12.1 | for not tackling these issues head on. They try to do it every time they're in office, every new coalition |
| 2:18.8 | comes in. But the public is very disappointed with Chancellor Mercer's domestic issues because |
| 2:24.8 | they do realize, on the one hand, reform is needed. But on the other hand, there's the constituency |
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