Brussels Playbook Podcast

In a week of geopolitical ping-pong we take a break to dive deeper into the politics of well-being and what it takes to be a great political communicator, with the 38-year-old prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who joined Ryan Heath in front of a live audience at the POLITICO office in Brussels. In the podcast panel we discuss the dangers of dialogue with dictators, and what a public b...

This week’s podcast focuses on the Munich Security Conference, one of the big events on the global political calendar. It features two interviews from POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent Matt Karnitschnig, who sat down with Rick Grenell, the outspoken U.S. ambassador to Berlin, and Slovakia’s veteran Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák. Grenell and Lajčák provided their divergent impressions of the...

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath in this extra edition of our podcast. Hunt once took heavy fire from Brussels for making a comparison that invoked the EU and the Soviet Union. But he's been much more diplomatic lately in his dealings with the EU.In this exclusive interview in our Brussels office, he talks extensively about Brexit. “It’s massively in everyone’s int...

This week's feature interview is a 15-minute highlight reel from John McDonnell's already famous interview with POLITICO's London Playbook editor Jack Blanchard. In addition to discussing Brexit next steps and Labour's anti-Semitism challenges, the U.K. shadow chancellor landed himself in hot water by describing Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill as a "villain" for sending in the a...

This week we bring you the revenge of the geeks! Bellingcat is the world's most surprising and one of its most successful journalism ventures. Founder Eliot Higgins and senior investigator Christiaan Triebert explain what open source investigation is, and how they used it to get to the bottom of modern mysteries, including tracking down the Skripal poisoning suspect and identifying the people and...

Facebook's new global head of public affairs gives his first public interview since starting the job to Ryan Heath. Clegg addresses a growing number of Facebook controversies and outlines the company's plan to win back trust and contribute to democracy. The podcast panel debates Facebook's efforts, the latest developments in the Macedonia name dispute, and Margot Wallström's admission that she can...

POLITICO's Ryan Heath brings you two podcasts in one from the World Economic Forum — our final daily Davos Confidential show also doubles as your regular weekly EU Confidential. (Check out the other Davos Confidential shows wherever you found this podcast.)Ryan talks to Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra about Brexit, what worries him about the EU and why people should vote in May's European Pa...

Kumi Naidoo, secretary-general of Amnesty International, talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath in our latest pop-up podcast from the World Economic Forum. Ryan also sums up his impressions of the WEF so far and talks to World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Wellcome Trust boss Jeremy Farrar about global efforts to improve mental health. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former Danish prime minister and current head of Save the Children International, is our main guest in today’s pop-up podcast from the World Economic Forum. Speaking before an audience at a live taping of the podcast in Davos, Thorning-Schmidt talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath about everything from children’s rights to Brexit to her own future. Also today, Ryan chats to Ti...

POLITICO’s Ryan Heath is back with another series of daily podcasts from the World Economic Forum. In our first episode of the 2019 edition, Ryan asks Huffpost international director Louise Roug if all the chatter about tackling inequality will amount to anything more than Davos-speak. Ex-Formula One driver Nico Rosberg tells us about the mobility revolution that drove him to Davos. And Ryan asks...

As the winds of right-wing populism sweep through the world's biggest democracies, from India to the United States, and Brazil to the European Union, and the United Kingdom continues to tear itself apart, we take a step back in this week's podcast to consider Churchill and Europe. Our feature interview is with the young Dutch historian Felix Klos, who was born the year the European Union was creat...

Netflix plans 153 original shows in Europe in 2019, worrying local broadcasters and delighting consumers. That level of ambition also leaves the company burning through billions in cash. The week's featured guest is David Hyman, general counsel at Netflix. The podcast panel of Lina Aburous and Alva Finn discusses the European Commission's efforts to brand 2019 as being about delivery, destiny and...

Gayle Smith, a former journalist and now campaigner against extreme poverty, is our main guest. In our podcast panel, Alva Finn and Lina Aburous discuss the U.K. policy of making victims of forced marriages pay for their own flights home if they are rescued by the British government. And we make our political predictions for 2019. Smith, CEO and president of the ONE campaigning group, tells host R...

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei are our main guests, interviewed live on stage by POLITICO's Ryan Heath. Also, panelists Alva Finn and Lina Aburous join Ryan to look back on 2018 and bestow EU Confidential's prestigious Tajani awards on those who have made an outstanding contribution to the political year. EU Confidential takes a brief festive break next wee...

Double-header this week: socialist candidate for European Commission president Frans Timmermans and the European Commissioner for sport, education and culture, Tibor Navracsics. The panel debates Britain's mid-life crisis a.k.a Brexit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talk to Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for innovation, research and science, about his passion for zero-emission cities, artificial intelligence and blockchain. The panel debates the Yellow Jackets eco-tax protest movement in France, and Denmark’s plan to send migrant criminals to an isolated island. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad cho...

We return to the theme of diversity in Brussels, a year after POLITICO’s Brussels So White article series, which looked at racial diversity and related themes in the EU’s de facto capital. The interview guests are two high-ranking lobbyists and public relations strategists, Lisa Ross and Gurpreet Brar from Edelman, who speak about their personal experiences of Brussels as people of color. Ross tol...

Greens are riding high as they gather in Berlin this weekend for their co-candidates for European Commission president in 2019. A string of national and regional electoral successes in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg are the reason for the positive mood. But the Greens are also only a tiny force in much of the EU. This episode features Ska Keller, Bas Eickhout and Petra Sutter: the three candidate...

Rose Gottemoeller, NATO's deputy-secretary general, is our main guest this week. She's the highest-ranking female official in the history of the military alliance — or, as Gottemoeller herself puts it, "the first deputy secretary-general of NATO who happens to be a woman.” Gottemoeller talks about Russia’s turn from the west, and how attitudes to women have changed in the national security world s...

Our main guest is Bill Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia but now a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin. He’s the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act — legislation designed to impose severe financial and travel sanctions on human rights abusers. Browder tells our chief Brussels correspondent, David Herszenhorn, the story behind the act and how he’s trying to bring it into the EU....

With Europe's eyes glued to Berlin this week as the effects of Angela Merkel's partial retirement are digested, this podcast episode looks at what happens now that she has more time to devote to EU-level challenges and reforms, but less political capital to spend on them. And what of Europe's increasingly fragmenting political center? A different European party runs each of the five biggest EU cou...

First up Justine Maillot from the Surfrider Foundation, a group of activists pushing for healthy oceans from the bottom-up. Then we speak to Davide Magnana who is trying to build an industry based on wave and tidal power, and Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank: the man Europe turns to when it doesn't have enough money to solve a pressing problem. Finally, European commissioner...

Bill Gates — billionaire tech founder turned philanthropist — is the main guest on this week's podcasts. We focus on why Europe is an aid superpower, what support Africa needs to cope with its exploding population, and why there's reason to believe the world is getting better. The podcast panel compares the world views of Gates and the nationalists winning support across Europe. Hosted on Acast. S...

In a wide-ranging interview Weber says Brussels is a "black box" that is disconnected from most Europeans (though he leads its biggest party in the European Parliament). His campaign pitch puts a premium on changing how the job of European Commission president is done: “When there are fires in Sweden or in Portugal and people dying in Greece, I think a commission president must be there to show up...

Alexander Stubb lays out his pitch for the European Commission presidency in this week's episode. Stubb is competing with Manfred Weber to be the European Peoples Party's candidate for the post in 2019. Stubb is leaning on his experience as a former prime minister and on a sharp expression of values. Nordic moderate, pragmatic and "a true European believer" who wants a "liberal democracy not an il...