Bojan Pancevski

The economy hasn't effectively grown since 2018.

It's the longest period of time of stagnation since the Second World War.

So it's alarming, essentially, at this stage.

Polls are showing that people have a very dim view of the future.

The majority thinks that their children will be worse off than their parents.

The stagnation of Europe's biggest economy has been one of the burning issues of the campaign.

Others have been support for Ukraine.

And the minister of the economy is a woman called Katarina Reiche.

She comes from business herself.

She used to be in energy, in the energy trade.

She dealt with gas and so on.

And she's very, very much attuned to the mood inside the business community.

So Katerina Reiche, the economy minister, figured that out and realized we need to onshore manufacturing for these things.

We need to start making these things ourselves in Germany, but also in Europe, or then start exporting them to our partners elsewhere.

So she came up with this idea of setting up a platform, matchmaking platform, where businesses from across the manufacturing economy can log in and offer their services in manufacturing things that the defense industry needs.

Once you enter that zone, the defense industry, you are no longer exposed to the competitive pressures from Asia and elsewhere because it's just the way it works.

Allies buy from allies.

They're not going to buy from adversaries.

I think, you know, there used to be a stigma because Germany is a very pacifist nation for obvious reasons of history.

And has, until the war in Ukraine, been extremely restrictive with government contracts for weapons factories, with exports.