500 days of war: what has Israel achieved?
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Israel is determined to achieve all the war objectives we set. We will eliminate Hamas's military capability and its political rule in Gaza. We will bring all our hostages home and we will ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. Right now, all eyes are on Washington. But who's actually watching Europe?

At the moment, Zelensky wants to make a deal. I don't know if Putin does. He might not. I don't know. Israel and Hamas have finally agreed to a ceasefire deal after months of delicate negotiations. I'm Venetia Rainey, and this is Battle Lines. It's Monday, 17th of February, 2025.

As the first phase of the Israel-Hamaf CISVA hostage deal enters its final weeks, the region is on tenterhooks to see what will happen next. Will the rest of the hostages be released and will aid continue to enter Gaza? Or will the deal be blown up and fighting restart? And as we mark 500 days since the October 7th massacre, we'll be asking to what extent has Israel achieved its original war aims?

Plus, we go behind the scenes at the most dramatic Munich security conference yet and look at why Deputy US Vice President J.D. Vance's speech left European leaders speechless. But let's start in the Middle East.

American Secretary of State Marco Rubio is visiting Saudi Arabia and the UAE this week, mainly to meet with Russian officials about a peace deal in Ukraine, but also to discuss President Donald Trump's plan to own and redevelop the Gaza Strip, something that would involve relocating about two million Palestinians elsewhere in the region. So far, the plan hasn't found much support among Arab states, but it does have one backer in the region, Israel.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Rubio and said Israel is working closely with the US to implement Trump's Gaza plan. Secretary Rubio and I discussed President Trump's bold vision for Gaza.

For Gaza's future, how we can work together to ensure that that future becomes a reality. To unpack this all, I'm joined by Yotam Confino. Yotam, welcome to Battlelines. Thank you so much. What do Israelis think of Trump's Gaza proposal? And can you tell us any more details about how exactly Israel would want this to work? So if we start with the Netanyahu government, there is broad consensus that this plan is good.

Pretty much all of Netanyahu's coalition partners have backed this plan. And actually today they're meeting, the security cabinet is meeting right now, and the finance minister, he's demanding that the security cabinet vote on Trump's plan. He wants an equivocal...

official backing of the plan and to start implementing it. But we're talking about relocating or forcing 2 million people from the Gaza Strip, which I think that most Israeli politicians know is impossible, or at least it cannot be done probably without force.

So at the moment, I think there's an understanding in Israel that the government is playing along with Trump's plan because they don't want to let him down or they don't want to anger him or humiliate him. So in a sense, they're just giving him rhetorical support. But again, I don't think that even Netanyahu, who is a very smart man and who knows the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict better than most people, I don't think that he thinks this is actually a viable plan.

So why go along with it for the moment? It's just politically expedient because we're in the final weeks now of the ceasefire negotiations. We're supposed to enter phase two where we think about the next step for Gaza. Where is the credible plan? So first of all, Netanyahu has not come up with his own plan for now 16 months as for what to do with Gaza the day after the war. And he's been very much criticized for not presenting a plan

And this is why there's such a problem right now with the ceasefire, because according to the ceasefire, in the third phase, there'll have to be discussions about who will be the interim government in Gaza. And now Netanyahu is saying it won't be Hamas and it won't be the Palestinian Authority, but I don't have any other solution. My solution is Donald Trump's proposal, which was only presented two weeks ago.

So I think Netanyahu is basically taking the hot potato, which is Gaza, and throwing it into Trump's hands and saying, by all means, you go ahead. This is your plan and we support it. That's at least the understanding inside Israel that that's what he's doing. Is there much pickup of Egypt's counter proposal to install a government of technocrats that would exclude Hamas?

It's something that the Israeli government has also been discussing for months. I remember talking to the former defense minister, Yoav Galand, about this. And he said that this was something that Israel would very much like to see. Basically, technocrats and non-terror group affiliated Palestinians inside Gaza. But it's something that should have been talked about much more vigorously a long time ago.

So I think we're a bit late now because Hamas is controlling Gaza again. And Hamas is not about to lay down their weapons. In fact, one of the most senior people yesterday said in Qatar during an Al Jazeera conference that in no way is Hamas about to give up their power. So I think we're a little late in the game. And I think that's why many people in Israel and in Gaza fear, rightfully so, that it's just a matter of time before the ceasefire is going to break.

Today is technically 500 days since the October 7th massacre by Hamas and they took 250 hostages. 73 of those hostages are still in Gaza and I know there are nationwide protests across Israel today. Some people are fasting for 500 minutes to spotlight the awful conditions that some of the hostages have been coming out, gaunt, starved and the situation that they've spoken about being held in is awful and hostage families and protesters are basically saying they don't have much longer, particularly if this war resumes.

What do you think of the chances of this deal entering the second phase in the first week of March? So I think we need to listen to the Trump administration when it comes to the ceasefire because

Clearly, Donald Trump has a lot of leverage, both with the Israelis and with the Palestinians. And he has made it clear he wants to see all of the hostages out. And his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said today that there won't be any hostages left behind. The United States is adamant about implementing the second phase of the ceasefire. And right after he said that, the Netanyahu government also came out and said, yes, we will, of course, start negotiating. But

It's widely understood that Netanyahu is trying to find an excuse to violate the ceasefire or to sabotage it. But I don't think he's going to be able to play games with Donald Trump because he fears him.

And I think that we will see the implementation of the second phase. We have to remember that we only have two weeks left until the second phase is supposed to begin, which means that in two weeks, the remaining 14 hostages in the first phase of the ceasefire will have to be released. And after that, you have another 59 hostages.

The second phase will be mainly male hostages, many of whom are soldiers, many of whom are in horrific conditions, because we know from some of the hostages who were released that the male hostages were the ones who were treated the worst. And you can only imagine what soldiers are going through. So in any case, I think that we will see an implementation of the second phase, but it will likely be delayed as it already is. They should have already started negotiating the second phase, and they haven't done that yet.

I'm wondering if we can reflect a little bit as well, given that it's 500 days since the war technically broke out. The Israeli government at the beginning laid out three aims for this southern front of the conflict, to recover the hostages, to secure the borders with Gaza and to destroy Hamas. To what extent do you think Israel has achieved its aims?

I don't really think it's achieved any of those things, to be honest. First of all, when it comes to the hostages, many of them have been killed in Gaza, either by the Israeli military and friendly fire or by Hamas, executed by Hamas.

So a lot of them are going to come out in body bags and already have been coming out in body bags. I don't think that that's a victory for Israel in any respect. When it comes to destroying Hamas's military, the Israeli government said months ago, I even remember being at that briefing, that Hamas's military no longer exists. Now that's not true.

I don't know if it was because they deliberately lied or if it was because they thought that Hamas had been defeated, but we see now in Gaza that that's not the case. So I think Israel has not won the war, but I also don't think that Hamas has won the war. I think it would be a stretch to say that they had won the war when 40,000 plus people have been killed and northern Gaza is in ruins. That's not really what a victory looks like.

Securing the border remains to be seen. For now, it's relatively secure. There was an attempt to fire a rocket the other day from Gaza into Israel, but it fell inside the Gaza Strip. So it's very, I wouldn't say that Hamas is not able to attack Israel if they want to. I think if they wanted to, they could start firing rockets again. And that means that you have not secured the Gaza border.

So, I think that unfortunately the Israeli government has to admit that it's failed in many of its objectives. But in hindsight, I also think that the government knew that these three goals were not compatible. You cannot get all of the hostages out, destroy all of Hamas and secure the border in the conditions that they were operating under. That's not possible. But I would say to get

More than 100 hostages out, for example, alive. You could see that as an achievement because obviously it's an incredible difficult task and they managed to get them home to their loved ones. So there is, of course, some sort of achievements and victories that you could celebrate. But overall, I don't think that the Israeli government has come out of this in a victorious way.

It was a fourth aim that the Israeli government added, and that was to return its citizens to the north of Israel. How successful has that been? I know Israel has asked to extend its presence in southern Lebanon for the second time. Yes, so it's quite interesting. I was on a briefing earlier today with the Israeli military, and they said that Israeli soldiers are going to remain in five different locations in southern Lebanon, very, very close to the Israeli border.

Basically, strategic points that overlook the border and where they will be because they're afraid that Hezbollah is going to come in and start attacking some of those border towns again. Hezbollah has said they will not accept that. Any soldiers left behind after tomorrow will be treated as occupation forces, which means they will likely start attacking them.

So that in itself is incredibly fragile. And that's why not all Israelis have returned to their homes. Because first of all, many of the homes are destroyed by anti-tank missiles and rockets fired by Hezbollah. And the Israeli citizens in the north have not all been compensated fully. So many of them have homes that are destroyed.

And many are also afraid to actually go home because they're looking at what's happening in Lebanon right now. And the ceasefire has been anything really but a ceasefire. The only thing that's missing from all of the violations back and forth in the past couple of months

It's Hezbollah starting to fire proper rockets again. But Israel has attacked numerous Hezbollah positions and Hezbollah has also not been removed from southern Lebanon. So I would say rightfully so, many Israelis are concerned about going back to northern Israel because they don't think that this is going to be a lasting ceasefire. And finally, there's one other thing from their press conference over the weekend that I wanted to ask about. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Trump will help Israel finish the job on Iran. What do you think he meant?

I think he meant that Trump will eventually agree to Netanyahu's plan, which is to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Now, Netanyahu was quite good at convincing Trump to do certain things. He convinced him to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2019, 2018. And this time around, he's doing everything he can to convince him to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

And even though Trump is a man who says he will not start wars, I don't think that he will allow Iran to continue the pace of their nuclear program as it is.

unless he somehow in a magical way can strike a deal with Iran that would make sure that they never get nuclear weapons. But I think Netanyahu is really, really trying his best now to convince him to attack Iran as soon as possible because it's a very opportune moment for Israel and the United States to do it. Iran is very weak. Most of its proxies are militarily not defeated, but significantly weakened.

And Iran's air defense systems have also been more or less crippled by Israel. So for now, Netanyahu, it looks like he really would like to go ahead with his decade-long plan and destroy the facilities. Thank you so much for joining us. That's Yotam Kofi now. Thank you. Coming up after the break, we get the inside scoop from the Munich Security Conference with our Germany correspondent, James Rothwell. Don't go away.

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Now, every year, leaders from around the world gather in Munich for the Munich Security Conference. It's a conference that has taken on extra significance since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and this year was no different. Speakers included US Deputy Vice President J.D. Vance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutter, and the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. I'm joined by our Germany correspondent, James Rothwell. Welcome to Battlelands, James.

Can you start by telling us a bit about what the mood was like at Munich's security conference this year, given everything that's been going on at the moment? Hi, Venetia. I think the mood at the start of the

conference was one of anxiety and curiosity. There was a sense that this was going to be the conference where the Trump administration would lay out in some detail what its plan was for peace talks on ending the war in Ukraine. And what we got instead to, I think, the complete shock of nearly everybody

in the conference itself was a sort of diatribe from Vice President J.D. Vance about wokeism, about calls to bring down firewalls against the far right in European politics and generally railing against everything that the Trump administration dislikes about the way that the current EU leaders run

their countries. And there was almost nothing really in that big keynote speech from Mr. Vance about Ukraine peace talks. And so as I said, it kind of left the EU leaders, the other politicians, the military chiefs who come to Munich Security Conference specifically to hear something tangible.

about that issue, feeling rather shocked. So let's tuck into JD Vance's speech. As you say, quite extraordinary. What exactly were his criticisms of Europe and how did that land in the audience? So Mr Vance spoke at length about what he characterised as violations of free speech. The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor.

And what I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe

from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America. In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat. So he alluded, for example, to the recent presidential elections in Romania, which the courts there annulled amid concerns that the guy who won it was basically a pro-Kremlin candidate whose victory had been engineered

by sinister forces. There's an ongoing investigation into whether or not that was actually the case, but it caused a lot of concern at the time that somehow perhaps the Russians or some other hostile force had essentially infiltrated Romanian democracy and had

handed victory to this candidate who was virtually unknown and had a very low profile before the election started. Now, Mr. Vance characterized that instead as EU leaders running scared from a populist anti-establishment party. He sort of characterized the annulment of that election as an establishment stitch up.

the denial of the will of the people. And then he moved to the United Kingdom where he talked about these, he mentioned an incident in Scotland and another incident, I think, in Bournemouth where

where anti-abortion activists are turning up at what are called safe zones in the United Kingdom near abortion clinics, and they're praying, they say. And Mr. Vance characterized that as a violation of free speech. He was basically angry that, as he sees it, people are being arrested or facing police action in the UK for taking part in silent prayer outside UK.

Now, if this sounds very, very odd, if this sounds like the Vice President of the United States wading into the minutiae of how law and order is enforced in parts of the United Kingdom, that's exactly what it was. It was a highly unorthodox, unprecedented, as one former Biden official put it to me, intervention in the affairs of other European countries and

For that reason, Venetia, lots of people at the conference found this speech that was kind of railing against these sort of culture war issues in the UK and Europe. They found it very, very odd. Vance also repeated the Trump administration's line that Europe must step up and provide for its own defence. How did that go down? Yeah.

Yeah, so there's been a big theme, and not just at this conference, but the Trump administration in general on Europe, which is that they want to see the European countries, the European NATO countries really step up in terms of their defense spending going beyond the 2% spending of GDP on defense targets. But in addition to that, the Americans are really angry.

not keen on having any boots on the ground in Ukraine, for example, in a scenario where there's a ceasefire and some kind of peacekeeping forces require. What I think the Trump administration really wants to do, and this is what J.D. Vance, I think, was alluding to in his speech, is essentially, as the sheriff of the world, they want to broker peace.

a peace deal in Europe, and then they want to step back and leave the Europeans to implement and secure it themselves. That, I think, was sort of the flavor of what Mr. Vance was saying in this speech. But he only sort of very, very, very briefly touched on this issue of European security. And then he kind of dived straight back into his complaints about

European political parties being scared of the far right and so on and so forth. But there was a sort of flick, if you like, of this sense that Europe needs to stand on its own two feet, basically, in the context of defence, which quite a few voices in Europe and in NATO would agree with. They just get a bit nervous when they start to get the impression that the United States is

is not as interested as it was under the Biden administration in playing that sort of cue role in upholding European security. Obviously, J.D. Vance's speech comes in the wake of Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense's comments, essentially laying out Trump's negotiating position of Ukraine, in which he seems to have agreed to quite a lot of Putin's requirements before negotiations have formally begun. Ukraine never joining NATO, Ukraine not getting any of its pre-2014 land back, no U.S. boots on the ground, etc.,

I'm wondering how people in Munich were digesting those comments. I know they happened before the conference. They can't have come as a complete surprise, but perhaps the bluntness of it did? I think that's right. It wasn't a complete surprise.

EU officials and other delegates at this conference have dealt with the Trump administration before, so they know that it's unpredictable and that it can be very bombastic. I still think a lot of people were left quite shocked by it. There was a view, there was a sense among particularly EU officials who were attending this conference that the Trump administration has basically folded before the negotiations have even begun by, as you alluded to there, essentially saying that

Russia can keep land that it's captured by a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not just in 2022, but also the initial invasion in 2014. And I think that's really alarmed people because regardless of what the kind of hard,

facts on the ground, if you like, of negotiating with a hostile power like Russia may be. I think there's this sense that when you're going into a negotiation as difficult as this, you need to negotiate hard. You need to come in, and to use a sort of Brexit analogy, your opening negotiation position needs to be very, very, very, very far away from what you're actually willing to accept because, of course, the inevitable nature of these negotiations is that you're trying to meet somewhere in the middle. And

And if you start very, very far away from the middle, you can slowly, slowly see ground in return for concessions from the other side, and you maybe get something that both sides feel is an achievement. But if you sort of drop all of the key demands at the very beginning, and this is what people at the conference felt was being done, then it may allow you to very quickly get a ceasefire, which clearly is what the Trump administration wants. But you just have to give up so much in return. And from a European perspective, what's being given up

is basically deterrence against Russia. Because a key concern, as you know, is trying to make sure that not just that Russia doesn't invade Ukraine again, but he doesn't

harbour any ambitions to invade a NATO country in Europe. So there's a lot of concern at this conference about that. I know you'll be talking about that more in depth on our sister podcast, Ukraine the Latest. I would advise listeners to check that out today for more on that specific issue. We also heard from Zelensky during the conference speaking about the need for a European army. Is that something that you've heard getting much pickup from other people at the conference? How realistic is that? Yeah, the European army theme is interesting because I think as

As British readers and podcast listeners, when we think European army, we think of that debate a few years ago about ever closer union in the European Union itself and the idea of, you know, sort of the erosion of the national flag in favor of a whole collective European army that marches under the blue and yellow flag of the EU and so on. And I think some people may have wondered if that's what Zelensky was talking about, but I don't think he was. I think he was talking about a European army which defends Europe

in lieu of, perhaps, the United States. I mean, the point that Mr. Zelensky was making is that we can't rely on the United States now to sort of step in should there be further aggression from Russia. And I think the central point that he was making was that

Rather than a kind of European-US partnership, there needs to be a Europe-wide, as he put it, European army that is self-sufficient, self-reliant on itself to not just deter Russia, but potentially to respond to any future aggressions. Now, you might of course say, well, that's what NATO is for. But I think another part of the background behind what Mr. Lutski was saying is

is that we know that Mr. Trump is a critic of NATO. We know that he's quite skeptical of NATO. And we also know that Vladimir Putin wants to basically test NATO to its destruction. That is why there is so much anxiety about Ukraine joining NATO, because that would then perhaps lead to a...

showdown that could be existential for NATO. Let's talk about some of the other speeches that may have caught your eye. I noticed that our Foreign Secretary David Lammy has finally committed to spending 2.5% of the UK GDP on defence. That's quite positive news. Yes, that's right. The Foreign Secretary said that the British government will be laying out in some detail in the coming months, he said, how that 2.5% target is going to be

met. The point that he was making is that it's a very good idea to increase defense spending now, even if it's a bit tricky for the treasury, because he was arguing in the long run, if Ukraine is defeated, the overall cost to Europe and therefore the United Kingdom is going to be even higher. He alluded to the fact that during the Cold War, the United Kingdom was putting about 7%

of GDP into defense spending. He kind of hinted that the reason that we're going up to 2.5 is because it's basically cheaper in the long run to increase the spending by a reasonable amount now and try to protect Ukraine, restore deterrence against Russia. Very, very big ask, as we just discussed.

And he'd like to take that action now so that we don't end up in a situation where things escalate even further and even more money needs to be dedicated to defence spending of GDP later on. It's a funny one though, isn't it? Because it feels like Labour have taken such a long time to commit to this number and it's still not properly formalised. We're waiting for the Strategic Defence Review coming out sometime in April.

They've taken so long to get to this 2.5% figure. And actually, in the meantime, the target now seems to have moved a bit onto 3%. Yes, I think that's right. I think 3% is the target that's discussed more openly now, or 4% or even 5%. Interestingly, Germany is not much better on this. I mean, in the German election debate...

Olaf Scholz, the current chancellor of Germany, was asked to respond to President Trump's suggestion that NATO spending should be 5%. And he completely ruled that out. Friedrich Meyers, the election frontrunner who leads the Christian Democratic Union, he was asked, you know, how much, what percentage point would he spend on defense if he becomes chancellor after next week's elections? And he was very reluctant to give a figure.

He said, I don't want to get into figures, you know, but just know that I'm committed. You know, he said to German defense. And, you know, some people debate the merits of getting into the weeds on what percentage of GDP should be spent on defense. I think that the one thing I would say is that

If you want countries to spend, say, 2.5% or 3%, one of the ways that you get there, perhaps, and I think sometimes this is what the Trump administration is doing, one of the ways that you get there is you start making a lot of very angry noise about how no one is spending 5% on defense. And then you sort of meet in the middle and your landing zone, which is where you always realistically wanted to be anyway, is ruined.

2.5%, maybe 3%. So I suppose it is possible that that's what's going on here. Talking of German politics, the election is this weekend very closely watched because of the AFD's surge in popularity, likely to be the second biggest party after the elections, according to current polling. Obviously, part of the furore over J.D. Vance's comments was that he was

He essentially endorsed populist movements like the AFD all across Europe. I don't believe he mentioned the AFD by name, but he did criticise the political firewall system that Germany has had in place since the Second World War to keep out far-right parties like the AFD. He said it was undemocratic. Is it true that J.D. Vance snubbed German leader Olaf Scholz in favour of meeting the AFD's leader, Alice Weidel? It is true. Not only did he...

turned down a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the conference, supposedly due to a scheduling issue, after his speech where he didn't mention the AFD by name, but in as many words basically endorsed the AFD after that speech. He had a meeting and

with Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD. He basically snubbed the current chancellor of Germany in favour of the leader of a far-right party which is considered basically a pariah by the traditional parties of Germany, including Friedrich Maas' CDU party, which is the one that all the polls suggest is actually going to win this election. What's really intriguing is

is that the CDU under Mr. Metz has gotten very populist. It's gotten very tough on migration, some of its policies on migration, such as calling recently for a de facto closure of Germany's borders to all asylum seekers.

are basically AFD policies, you know, that the CDU leader has sort of cribbed from the AFD. And yet, J.D. Vance, the Trump administration, is not courting Mr. Mayors, who is far ahead in these polls, projected to get about 30% of the vote. It's courting the AFD instead, which is, yes, polling at second place, but is...

most likely, based on these largely reliable German polls, going to get 20%, not 30%. Because of the firewall policy, which is what the Trump administration is now trying to dismantle by putting pressure on Germany. The other issue is that even then, the AFD, because of the firewall policy, is considered beyond the pale by the other German parties. They are currently refusing to have any coalition talks with them. I think in a weird way, it's actually the election frontrunner, Mr. Merz, who's

kind of strangely the big loser of all of this. You'd think that the Trump administration would be looking to him as this very, very, very tough guy on migration who's also most likely to govern Germany. But they seem to have completely ignored him in favor of the AFD. And I suspect...

That is because this is not just about migration in Europe. It's also about attitudes towards Russia in Germany. And we know that the AFD is much, much more sympathetic to Russia than Mr. Metz in the CDU. And that might be a motivating factor in this, what you could even call sort of love bombing of the AFD by Team Trump. I mean, just to...

make this final point. Elon Musk is also an AFD superfan. He has claimed on social media that only the AFD can save Germany and he's even given speeches at AFD rallies. He is quite aggressively campaigning

for an AFD victory in a foreign country. It's very, very unusual interference in another sovereign country's election. But that is kind of becoming the norm now, it seems, under this administration. Is this American love bombing of the AFD, is that landing at all with Germans?

That's a really good question. Polling has been done in the wake of significant interventions in German politics by Trump allies. The polling has not shown a sort of swing in favor of the AFD. I do believe that one poll was done fairly recently about Musk specifically, where German voters who were polled for that were quite hostile.

to the idea of a foreigner directly interfering in their election and telling them what to do. I think the other key point for this election is that this is an election where you're either for the AfD or against it. I think many, many, many voters in Germany have already made up their minds. The debate about the AfD and its alleged toxicity, its alleged extremism, its alleged links to Russia, it's been going on for a very long time in Germany. It's very polarizing. I think

very unlikely at this late stage of game that people will change sides. There is a school of thought that says actually these interventions from the Trump administration at best don't have a big impact on voters because they've made their minds up already. At worst, it might actually turn them off the AFD because they don't like being told what to do via foreign power.

And just finally, there's a picture doing the rounds on social media of Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the time, meeting Adolf Hitler in 1938 in Munich. Can you tell us a bit about why that's resonating at the moment? Well, there's this conviction that for all the talk about peace, for all of the talk about coming to some sort of constructive agreement on how to end the war in Ukraine,

Supporters of Ukraine who attended this conference and some EU officials are deeply suspicious of that. And what they think is actually happening here is total capitulation to the Russian regime. And they draw a historical parallel between that and the appeasement of that famous meeting that you alluded to earlier. And that's why people are drawing comparisons to what happened with Neville Chamberlain. And that's why people are worried that this is, dare I say it, a surrender conference to some extent.

Thanks so much for joining us on Battlelines. That's James Rothwell, our Germany correspondent in Munich. My pleasure. That's all for today's episode of Battlelines. We'll be back again on Friday. Until then, goodbye. Battlelines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battlelines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave us a review as it helps others find the show.

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Dresses, jackets, and so much more. Right here in the USA. So when you buy American Giant, you create jobs in towns and cities across the country. And jobs bring pride. Purpose. They stitch people together. If all that sounds good to you, visit American-Giant.com and get 20% off your first order when you use code STAPLE20 at checkout. That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com with promo code STAPLE20.