Friends of Europe podcasts

The first Citizens Global Assembly took place around COP26 in Glasgow and it provided a true snapshot of what humanity looks like. It was co-initiated by Jamie Kelsey and kickstarted because of climate change but its potential goes beyond this single issue. By bringing people together from truly diverse backgrounds it can be a solution to the polarised world we live in today. That’s why host Catar...

In this second episode of the three-part series on the rise of the far-right in Europe, we want to zoom in on Germany. With its history, surely Germany would be more immune to the far-right movement but this is clearly not the case. That’s why on this episode of Policy Voices host Catarina Vila Nova spoke to Kristina Krömer and Dario de la Rosa from metro_polis. Born in Dresden and expanded to Lei...

If recent elections in The Netherlands, Slovakia and Portugal taught us anything is that the far-right is making serious gains across the continent and is a force to be reckoned with. With only two months to go before the entire union heads to the polls, we at Friends of Europe felt that it was necessary to dedicate some time to this movement. Yes, we understand the rise of the far-right as a thre...

We knew it already that this year was set to be dominated by wins of the far-right across the board. The Netherlands set the scene in the end of last year with the victory of far-right populist Geert Wilders and Portugal continued the trend when it recently elected 50 – yes, 50 – far-right members of parliament in the year it celebrates as many years of democracy. As we are approaching the pivotal...

Host Catarina Vila Nova sat down with Irene Fellin, NATO’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels shortly after her return from her second trip to Ukraine. What she describes – the lack of body armour tailored for women – is just one very practical example of why NATO still needs a special representative for women, peace and security. The start of F...

In the year Portugal celebrates 50 years of democracy, it elected almost as many far-right MPs to the national parliament. Sunday’s elections saw the end of eight years of socialist rule with the social democrats coming first but by an extremely slim margin. In this episode of Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova spoke to Ana Gomes, former MEP for the Socialists and Democrats. Ana Gomes painted...

Exactly two years ago, on International Women’s Day, the European Commission proposed a EU Directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence. This new initiative was groundbreaking because, for the first time, it was proposing a common definition of rape based on consent but, in the end, the justice ministers of France and Germany blocked the inclusion of this clause. The European W...

As the guardian of future generations, Derek Walker has to look ahead much more than any other politician. The job of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales is to protect and promote the needs of future generations which means that most of his constituents are not born yet. Derek Walker has been the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales for exactly one year now. He started his seven-yea...

This week on Keeping an Eye on the Geopolitical Ball, Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe, reports on the shocking news of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the Polar Wolf penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. In order to honour Navalny’s name and legacy, Jamie contends that outrage alone is not enough. Instead, he must become just as effective an opposition le...

Two years ago, Russian troops were stationed outside the Ukrainian border and on the morning of 24 February 2022, Russia began the largest attack on a European country since World War II. Two years ago, the questions we were asking were: is this the beginning of a full-scale invasion? Will sanctions have an impact? How can Putin be stopped now? Today, we know that 24 February 2022 marked the begin...

This week on Keeping an Eye on the Geopolitical Ball, Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe, looks ahead at the Munich Security Conference, which is the annual gathering of the security policy community. Posing a great opportunity to assess the transatlantic temperature, Jamie predicts the mood to be rather downbeat. Donald Trump’s statement, that if he were president, the United States w...

In this episode of Policy Voices, Dalia Grybauskaitė, the former president of Lithuania, issued a stark warning about the risk Russia poses to European security. In calling for a serious effort to strengthen Europe’s defence, Grybauskaitė warned, "Putin will not ask for permission but he will involve us in direct conflict”. Grybauskaitė, a former European Commissioner, says that preparedness must...

This week on Keeping an Eye on the Geopolitical Ball, Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe, assesses whether Turkey should be expelled from NATO. At a time when the West is under a lot of geopolitical strain, the cohesion of alliances such as NATO becomes ever more important. Turkey blocking Sweden’s admission to the Alliance, quarrels with the United States about the arming of Kurdish S...

Thierry Breton joined Friends of Europe for an event right after a special European Council and on the day hundreds of angry farmers drove their tractors to Brussels and paralysed most of the European Quarter. The European Commissioner for Internal Market spoke to Dharmendra Kanani, Friends of Europe’s Chief Spokesperson, about the challenges of the internal market, the much anticipated Digital Ne...

This week on Keeping an Eye on the Geopolitical Ball, Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe, claims that nowhere the cycle of hope and despair has been more visible than in Africa in recent times. Positive developments in the security situation in Africa - such as peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the end of conflict between Sudan and the breakaway South Sudan in 2011, and the 2015 Algi...

Based in Sarajevo, the War Childhood Museum is the only museum in the world focused exclusively on childhood affected by war. Its founder, Jasminko Halilovic, was one of the keynote speakers of State of Europe, Friends of Europe’s flagship event, where he reminded European commissioners and national leaders from across Europe that having your childhood affected by war is one of the most commonly s...

This week on Keeping an Eye on the Geopolitical Ball, Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe, analyses the awkward squad within the European order: Turkey, Hungary and Slovakia. Not upholding the democratic principles on which the EU and NATO are based, these three countries freeze decision-making and assert their naked national interests. While Turkey maintains strong relations with Russi...

After years of experience in active theatres of war, including in Ukraine, Amir Omeragic, the Director of the Peace and Security Cluster of UNOPS, can confidently say that “we know what we’re doing” in Gaza. Before the latest outbreak of conflict, a team from UNOPS was already on the ground in Gaza due to the ongoing “cycles of violence” but Amir admits that, now, “it’s nearly impossible [to provi...

This week on Keeping an Eye on the Geopolitical Ball, Jamie Shea, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe, looks ahead to escalating conflicts and mounting tensions around the globe. In addition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza, conflicts in Sudan, Ethiopia, the DRC, Afghanistan and Myanmar, paint a dire picture of the year ahead. In view of this, Jamie ou...

William Lai, from the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Tawain, won comfortably the Presidential elections last Saturday. Framed as a choice between war and peace, democracy and autocracy, in the end, democracy was the clear winner. In this week’s Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, assistant professor at the National Dong Hwa University, who has...

It is a question we all have asked at some point: are we alone in the universe? In this episode of Policy Voices, Rayan Vugdalic, programme officer for the Space Matter Initiative at Friends of Europe, speaks to the astrophysicist Guillem Anglada-Escudé, who led the team that discovered the Proxima b exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, our closest neighbouring star. This discovery landed Guillem...

As part of the work to design a renewed social contract for Europe, Debating Europe is embarking on a crucial exploration of the challenges facing liberal democracies in the 21st century. In an era dominated by global issues such as climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence, the traditional decision-making tools inherited from the past two centuries are proving to be inadequate. All o...

As part of the work to design a renewed social contract for Europe, Debating Europe is embarking on a crucial exploration of the challenges facing liberal democracies in the 21st century. In an era dominated by global issues such as climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence, the traditional decision-making tools inherited from the past two centuries are proving to be inadequate. All o...

As part of the work to design a renewed social contract for Europe, Debating Europe is embarking on a crucial exploration of the challenges facing liberal democracies in the 21st century. In an era dominated by global issues such as climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence, the traditional decision-making tools inherited from the past two centuries are proving to be inadequate. All o...

As part of the work to design a renewed social contract for Europe, Debating Europe is embarking on a crucial exploration of the challenges facing liberal democracies in the 21st century. In an era dominated by global issues such as climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence, the traditional decision-making tools inherited from the past two centuries are proving to be inadequate. All o...