Who is Olaf Scholz? — German election aftermath — EU-US trade and tech push

Brussels Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.4 • 204 Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We dive into the aftermath of the German election and take a closer look at Olaf Scholz, the favorite to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor. We also unpack a new push by the EU and the U.S. to agree a common rulebook on tech and trade. Following Sunday's German election, POLITICO's Andrew Gray and Matthew Karnitschnig get you up to speed on the talks in Berlin about forming the next government. And Brussels Playbook co-author Suzanne Lynch discusses how the outcome is going down with EU policymakers, and what questions they still have about Germany post-Merkel. Olaf Scholz is in pole position to lead the next government after his Social Democrats came first in the election. But just who is he? Our Executive Producer Cristina Gonzalez caught up with Der Spiegel journalist Christiane Hoffmann in Berlin to shed light on the politician and the person. Also, Chief Technology Correspondent Mark Scott, author of POLITICO's weekly Digital Bridge newsletter, has the latest on Wednesday's inaugural meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council in Pittsburgh. Mark explains why the council is such a big deal and breaks down where the two sides stand on the key issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	EU Confidential gets started right after this.
0:04.1	Today's episode is presented by the EPP Group,
0:07.1	whose latest podcast discusses how the EU is battling breast cancer.
0:11.5	Featuring Deirdre Clune MEP, Oncologist-Specialist Dr. Isabel Rubio,
0:16.5	and cancer survivor Barbara Wilson.
0:19.3	Tune in.
0:21.8	We worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the Union.
0:25.9	Now they decided different.
0:27.7	I hope that they will manage the problems coming from that
0:30.3	because I think it's important that there will be good relations
0:34.2	between the EU and the UK.
0:38.2	Welcome to EU Confidential, the number one European politics podcast.
0:42.8	I'm Andrew Gray, Politico's EU editor in Brussels, back here after a week in Berlin covering
0:49.1	the German election.
0:50.9	And you just heard a voice we might be hearing a lot more of, maybe even in English,
0:55.2	in the years to come, the voice of Olaf Schultz, the Social Democrat, whose party came first
1:01.0	in that German election on Sunday. That makes him the favourite to succeed Angela Merkel
1:06.8	as Chancellor. As you probably know, the Social Democrats finished just ahead of the Christian
1:12.6	Democrats who've led Germany for the past 16 years, but suffered heavy losses with Merkel not running for re-election.
1:20.6	Then further back came the Greens and the Free Democrats, who both looked set to be part of the next government one way or another.
1:28.9	The far right alternative for Germany and the left party also won seats in Parliament, but won't be in government.
1:36.3	In a moment, we'll talk about what comes next in Germany, what kind of government may emerge, what that may mean for Europe, and how all of this is going down in Brussels.
	...

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