Germany's been held up as the good news story of Europe, as the country pulled out of the recession just a year after the world financial crash of 2008. This week's Focus podcast takes the long view on how the country's economy has stood up to the crisis and asks how government policy and state provision are shifting in comparison with the rest of continental Europe.
Jon Henley talks to Guardian commentators and correspondents Martin Kettle and Fiona Harvey, plus Sebastian Borger from Financial Times Deutschland.
Is the economic picture for Germany uniformly positive? How does Germany view its role in Europe? And how does the country's collective memory of the hardship post-war play into how the population has dealt with the crisis?
The panel discusses the importance of the medium-sized businesses known as "Mittelstand" in Germany. They're considered the backbone of the economy, employing more than 70% of the country's workforce and producing about half of the GDP. What lessons can the UK learn from the cooperative German approach to business which contrasts so much with the Thatcherite model?
We also hear from the Hung family in Wuerzburg, Bavaria, about their experiences.
• This article was amended 15 March 2011. In the original we misspelt "Mittelstand". This has been corrected.
