For Germany, football is often a reflection of the nations’ stability.
“When Germany is going well, things are going well on the pitch,” Irish Times Berlin correspondent Derek Scally tells the Inside Politics podcast.
Following another premature exit from a world cup tournament they won only 12 years ago; in football, as in German politics, the future is uncertain.
Host Hugh Linehan asks where the major fault lines are in the upcoming federal elections in September. Elections, Scally explains, that are likely to be won by the far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) bar any major shifts.
NI groups tackling violence against women and girls to share €10m peacebuilding fund
State ‘cannot provide every home’: Minister says cultural change needed on housing
What do the billions in Summer Economic Statement mean for tax and public services?
Budget 2027 expected to be tightest budget since before Covid-19
“Establishment parties are seen as lacking ideas and energy” Scally says. “The sense of a government exhausting its political potential seems to be a general agreement around Berlin.”
Europe’s biggest economy is vulnerable on a number of fronts. It relies on Chinese manufacturing for its automotive sector, while facing major competition from increasingly popular, often cheaper, Chinese car makers.
Though the Christian Democrats’ Friedrich Merz has only been chancellor for a year, frustration and fatigue are already creeping into public sentiment, Scally says.
Could his 34-point plan announced last week, including pension reforms, tax cuts, and business deregulation, turn things around?
