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04:59Friedrich Merz promised to weaken the AfD.
05:02Instead, it is stronger than ever.
05:04Now the chancellor faces an agonizing dilemma.
05:07Stick to the political firewall and risk watching the AfD grow even further.
05:12Or change course.
05:14And risk tearing his own party and perhaps his government apart.
05:17Earlier this morning, I spoke to Bela Ander from 2002 to 2005 chief spokesman for the federal government
05:25Ander Gerhard Schröder and now head of the PR company Ander Business Communication.
05:30I asked him about the options Friedrich Merz has now
05:33and whether he can regain control of the political narrative.
05:38Well, it's going to be very hard for Chancellor Friedrich Merz to regain control
05:43because there's a substantial amount of people within his party
05:49who are now very critical of him and his politics.
05:53However, I'd say that 90% at least of the people in this party
05:58are in favor of keeping a strong distance towards the AfD
06:04that has just gained so much, about 45% of the voters' share
06:08in the state election of Sachsen-Anhalt.
06:12So, what can he do?
06:14He can continue on his reform path, which he's set out to do
06:18and try to keep the coalition together, which is increasingly difficult
06:24because the Social Democrats are on their own path of avoiding reforms.
06:30And what is the biggest mistake Merz has made?
06:37Communication is the key.
06:38Something I always say, and he's done very poorly at communication.
06:44He's acknowledged that himself yesterday when he came after talking to his colleagues
06:53at the CDU, at the CDU Presidium.
06:55He came out to journalists and said, well, I got to be better than this.
06:59There's always something journalists hear often and politicians say often.
07:04I see this, that's what he said, but I have to be also more capable of delivering my emotions.
07:11And people will say, oh, please don't do this, because Friedrich Merz has shown some emotions,
07:17but in a wrong way, agonizing of arguments brought to him by the normal public.
07:24So, but it was clear what he meant.
07:27He has to deliver in a way that is understood, that the German public understands
07:32why the government is continuing on this reform path.
07:36And that is something, the most important thing, basically, that he has to do.
07:41You are a close aide to Gerhard Schröder.
07:44If you were in the same position now with Friedrich Merz, what would you recommend?
07:51What would be your advice to him?
07:54My advice would be, let Friedrich Merz be Friedrich Merz, especially towards the people around him.
08:01And so he has to be more the person that he actually is and not be this person on one
08:11day
08:12and the other on the next day, because that's been sort of also a pattern in the last one and
08:17a half years
08:17that we've seen while he was in government.
08:20He was strong on one topic and then totally changed, flip-flopped, basically,
08:25and then was sort of the opposite on the next day when he saw some criticism coming up.
08:31So keep to your principles and continue on this reform path.
08:37Try to explain more, but in forms, in ways that are more amicable to you
08:44than the ones you've chosen in the past.
08:47Okay.
08:48Thank you so much, Mr. Ender.
08:50It was great having you on the show.
08:52Thank you, Stefan.
08:53One of these days.
08:54And have a good flight.
08:54I heard that you're going to go to the airport now.
08:58Thank you.
09:02Bela and a former government spokesman under Gerhard Schröder.
09:07Ukraine is fighting on three fronts.
09:10On the battlefield, Russia continues to press its advantage,
09:13while Ukraine is increasingly taking the war deep into Russian territory.
09:18Diplomatically, there's a fresh U.S. effort to revive peace talks.
09:21And economically, Ukraine faces another enormous challenge,
09:26keeping the country running.
09:27Joining me now is Timofi Milovanov,
09:30a former Ukrainian minister of economic development, trade and agriculture,
09:34and now president of the Kiev School of Economics.
09:37Good morning, sir.
09:38Good morning.
09:40So let us start with the battlefield.
09:42Is Ukraine holding the line, losing ground,
09:45or beginning to regain the initiative?
09:51So it's still losing, on average, this year,
09:54but at a very, very small, really minimal rate.
09:59And, for example, if you do a calculation,
10:03just, you know, back-of-the-envelope calculation,
10:05how much time Russia would need to achieve its objectives in Donbass,
10:09that would be four and a half years.
10:11Maybe up to ten years if we take the last months,
10:15the summer months, rate of advance.
10:17So, yeah, de facto, the front line is stale.
10:22U.S. envoys have been in Moscow, in Kiev,
10:26but there has been no breakthrough.
10:28Are these serious peace negotiations,
10:32or simply another round of diplomatic positioning?
10:36There are serious attempts at starting negotiations.
10:39So that's exactly what it is.
10:41There are no negotiations yet.
10:43But the offer, what we hear, again, I don't have direct access to.
10:47This is a very tight inner circle for obvious reasons.
10:50But, you know, what actually Americans are saying,
10:53American sources to us, to me, to our school are saying,
10:56and some of Ukrainian sources are saying,
10:58that the Russian position has not really changed since the February talks.
11:03That means limiting the army of Ukraine,
11:08giving up more unoccupied territory,
11:11and recognizing legally the occupied territories as Russian.
11:17practically all of these demands are not feasible,
11:21because they would contradict a constitution that would take years for Ukraine,
11:25even to attempt to do that,
11:27plus committing people in unoccupied territories to Russian rule.
11:31That's a travesty, and no, no Ukrainian will ever accept that.
11:37So, you know, nothing has changed,
11:39but there are attempts to establish a process.
11:42You know, there is a discussion about maybe a trilateral meeting, another round.
11:46This is a development, but a very limited one.
11:51All right.
11:52When you look at Ukraine today, after years of war,
11:54are you more optimistic or more worried than you were a year ago?
11:59You have 30 seconds.
12:01Both.
12:01I am pessimistic or worried that the war will take a long time,
12:06but I'm optimistic that Ukraine will hold.
12:08It's ready for a prolonged war,
12:10even though it will be very, very costly on people.
12:14All right.
12:15Timothy Milovanov, former Ukrainian economy minister,
12:17thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.
12:22A meeting of the so-called Ukraine Defense Contact Group
12:25is taking place today amid the urgent need for Ukrainian air defense.
12:29The meeting will be attended by U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby,
12:34who is due to brief allies on the severe challenge facing Ukraine and NATO
12:39when it comes to air defenses.
12:41Our NATO correspondent Shona Murray joins me now with details.
12:45Good morning, Shona.
12:47Good morning, Shona.
12:49U.S. Envoice, tell us about this online meeting.
12:54I'm still on the diplomatic line here.
12:57So there's real concern that the U.S. cannot fulfill the demands from Europe
13:02and from Ukraine for air defenses due to the Iran war.
13:05So where does that leave NATO and Ukraine?
13:09I think this is what we can say is very much a cautionary tale
13:12for European strategic autonomy,
13:14because as we know,
13:16the Europeans have been purchasing these Patriot air defense systems for Ukraine
13:21to intercept these Russian ballistic missiles that are coming fast and heavy, even overnight.
13:28Before the Iran war, this is also a risky strategy,
13:31because the Europeans should have been investing in their own industrial base
13:34to be able to provide interceptors as well for Ukraine.
13:37Cue the Iran war,
13:39and we know the United States has burned through critical munitions,
13:42including these Patriot defense systems.
13:44Now, the system itself is about a billion dollars.
13:47A missile is about four million dollars.
13:48So you're talking very expensive, very complicated to produce.
13:52And at the moment, there's absolute scarcity.
13:55That term scarcity is what I've heard from NATO officials for the past few days.
13:58This meeting today will very much focus on getting these interceptors to Ukraine.
14:02But there's a lag because the production can't keep up with the need.
14:06Now, what we saw is Germany has been given the license to manufacture them.
14:11What I've heard is that won't happen.
14:13There won't be any production until really December.
14:15And even with that, half of that needs to go to the United States,
14:18because America also needs these systems.
14:20And then we saw at the NATO summit, Donald Trump telling Zelensky,
14:23you can produce them, but that will take years to get that production up and running.
14:27So this is a real issue for European defense
14:30and something the Europeans should have been thinking about in the long term.
14:34Interesting.
14:35Shona, from Washington, it's Undersecretary Colby who is attending,
14:38and not the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
14:43Is there a special message?
14:44Well, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group is something that the Americans set up under the Biden administration.
14:49Lloyd Austin, who was Secretary of Defense at the time,
14:52when the Trump administration came in, Pete Hegseth said,
14:54I don't want really to chair this.
14:56So Elbridge Colby would be there.
14:57But the other point about him being there is he would be briefing NATO allies
15:01on America's plans to withdraw U.S. troops from NATO territory.
15:07Now, not all the troops is around 80,000 to 85,000,
15:10but certainly they are giving, they're in the middle of a posture review.
15:13So that is not great news when it comes to European security
15:16at a time when the war in Ukraine is really hardening.
15:21The ballistic missiles are really attacking and killing civilians,
15:23and we're coming into winter.
15:25So that's going to be also probably a difficult conversation.
15:28Stefan.
15:28All right, Shona.
15:29Thank you so much, Shona Mari, our NATO correspondent.
15:33The convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic
15:37was given a pompous funeral in Belgrade yesterday
15:40with government ministers among those paying their tributes.
15:43That's despite warnings from the EU that any glorification of his death
15:48would be incompatible with the bloc's values.
15:51For more, I'm joined again by Marit Gwynn, who has followed this story closely.
15:57Good morning, Marit.
15:58Good morning, Stefan.
15:58So first off, tell us about what happened yesterday at the funeral.
16:02Indeed.
16:03Just to remind our viewers, the message we were getting from Serbian officials yesterday
16:07was that this funeral of Ratko Mladic, a convicted war criminal,
16:11would be organized by the family and not by the state.
16:15So the Serbian government really trying to say this is not a funeral with state honours.
16:20However, Stefan, the images, and I think our viewers can see them on the screen shortly,
16:24coming out from that funeral seemed to tell a very different story.
16:28We saw the coffin of Mladic draped in the Serbian flag,
16:33flanked by what looked like military officials.
16:36Local media also reporting that there were at least three government ministers present
16:41to pay their tributes.
16:42This suddenly felt like a funeral with pomp, with fanfare,
16:47and for many people did look at least like a funeral with state honours.
16:51The European Commission was asked about this yesterday
16:54as these images were coming out of Belgrade.
16:57They were asked about the nature of this funeral,
16:59and they again repeated this message about not tolerating the glorification
17:03of genocide and this war criminal.
17:09But they did say that it was not the case that this was a funeral with state honours.
17:14Now, that has not gone down well in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
17:18We can take a look at a statement that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bosnia put out yesterday,
17:24directed at the commission's spokesperson.
17:26They said,
17:27Are you even aware of what you are saying?
17:29Five ministers, they said, from the Serbian governments were seated in the front row at the funeral.
17:34A convicted war criminal was given military honours.
17:37What are you afraid of?
17:39Why are you unwilling to call this what it is?
17:42So it's clear, Stefan,
17:43that the reaction of the commission,
17:45because there has been the cancelling of the trip of Marta Koz,
17:47the EU's enlargement chief,
17:49to Serbia,
17:50but no real action beyond words of condemnation.
17:53And this is generating frustration in Bosnia,
17:56but also in the wider international community.
17:58And surely, Mare,
18:00Brussels is now under pressure to take action, is it not?
18:04Well, you would think so.
18:05I spoke to a diplomat who said that, in fact,
18:09there will be no appetite now amongst member states
18:12to open the next phase of Serbia's accession talks,
18:15the talks of becoming an EU member.
18:16And they do need the unanimous approval of all member states to do that.
18:20So there will be an impact.
18:21But the question is now,
18:22is Brussels, is the commission willing to go further?
18:25Because theoretically, there are more that they could do.
18:28We know in the past,
18:29they've frozen the accession process of Georgia
18:32over fears of democratic backsliding.
18:35We know that in the past,
18:36they've also withheld funding from Serbia
18:38over controversial judicial reforms.
18:42That was earlier this year.
18:43But I spoke to officials last night,
18:45also this morning,
18:46for now,
18:47no confirmation as to whether they're going to go further
18:50and actually introduce some repercussions
18:52and punitive measures against Serbia.
18:54And this is because this is a very sensitive subject, Stefan.
18:57The commission does see the enlargement
19:00into the Western Balkans of the EU
19:02as a geo-strategic imperative.
19:04Serbia is a really key, crucial country in that regard.
19:08They don't want to let Serbia fall further into Russia's orbit.
19:11And so this is a very delicate balancing act
19:14for the commission as well.
19:15Right.
19:15And we will be following that.
19:17You will be following the story very closely.
19:19Mari, thank you so much for your great reporting.
19:22That's it for today.
19:23Stay tuned for more news here on Euronews
19:26and Euronews.com throughout the day.
19:28Thank you for watching.
19:29I'm Stefan Grobe.
19:30Take care and see you tomorrow.
19:59We'll see you tomorrow.
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