The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Are European leaders living in a Barbie-like dreamworld? This week, the idealised fantasy of the EU versus its awkward reality. Far from being a continent of grateful europhiles, a lot of people feel apathetic about the European project at best. Paweł Zerka joins us to discuss why non-white, young and Eastern Europeans feel especially left out of the EU, and what we can do to fix this.   We're als...

Last week we brought you geopolitics, this week we're bringing you testicles. Why has male contraception remained such an underground idea, despite decades of research? We speak to Paul Labourie, one of a growing number of men (in the francophone world at least) who are turning to DIY contraception devices to take on more of the responsibility in their relationships. We're also talking about the c...

We're back from our summer break! Rym Momtaz, the new editor-in-chief of the Strategic Europe blog, is here to catch us up on the main political developments we missed over the summer, from Ukraine to France. We're also talking about Sweden's suggestions for cutting kids' screen time, and a possible crackdown on outrageous concert ticket prices.    Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast, w...

This week, we're re-releasing another of our all-time favourite episodes to entertain your ears during our summer break. First aired in 2022, it's a story from our long-running series, 'This Is What A Generation Sounds Like', and it takes us to Georgia.   Thanks for listening! We'll be back in September. If you enjoy our podcast, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at ⁠⁠...

We're away on our summer break until September, but this week and next week we're re-releasing two of our favourite episodes from The Europeans' award-winning series, 'This Is What A Generation Sounds Like.  This week, a story that spans three generations of women: Sara, her mother, and her grandmother. In their collective lifetimes, Albania entered a communist dictatorship; the regime fell; and t...

It’s our first ever Q&A episode! Katy, Dominic, Katz and Wojciech answer listeners’ questions – from how we make the show, to the episodes we’d make if we were gazillionaires.    We’ve saved a couple of our answers for supporters of the podcast. If you’d like to hear them, we’d love it if you could send a few bucks our way at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (many currenc...

One Hungarian family. One piece of land. Two very different visions.    This is the final episode in our long-running series This Is What A Generation Sounds Like, made in cooperation with the Allianz Foundation . You can find the other episodes in the series here .   Thanks, as ever, to the listeners who support this podcast so that we can keep making it. You can chip in at patreon.com/europeansp...

A surprise left-wing election win? In Europe? In 2024? This week, we turn to our resident Parisian journalist to try to get our heads around what just happened in France, as well as what might happen next. We’re also looking at the other big left-wing winners of the week: the UK Labour Party. What might their new government mean for Britain’s relationship with Europe? Plus, Barcelona’s anti-touris...

Fewer expensive car chases, more moody shots and ambiguous endings: movies made in Europe are often very different from those made in the US. But Europe's more arty film output isn't just a product of our culture — it has a lot to do with how the industry is financed. This week, we're asking: why is European cinema the way it is, and should we be trying to change it? Plus, producer Wojciech Oleksi...

Enough politics: we’ve got a nature-themed episode for you this week. Producer Katz Laszlo joins Katy to explain how Austria’s environment minister went rogue to save the EU’s hugely important nature restoration law; we’re also talking about the German town that just voted to kill all its pigeons. And in the human world: the podcast that brings Scandinavians together in their own languages. Hilde...

The far-right surged but the centre held; somehow the two are true at once. Nearly 100 members of the new European Parliament have yet to tell us which political family they’ll be joining. And as for who’s actually going to be running the EU’s institutions for the next five years – right now, it’s anyone’s guess. How can we make sense of these European elections? Alberto Alemmano joins us to help...

They’re the second biggest elections on Earth. For the next four days, 373 million people are eligible to take part in the vote for the European Parliament. And yet in most EU countries, the prevailing mood is… ‘meh’.    This week, we take on the challenge of convincing you that these elections are anything but meh, with the help of one of our favourite explainers of all things EU, Beatriz Ríos. ...

Protests by angry farmers have swept across Europe this year. But from country to country, powerful groups have taken these protests over and changed their agenda. Who are these people, and what are they up to?   This is a special episode produced in collaboration with investigative journalists from Lighthouse Reports and media partners across Europe.    This podcast was made possible by our gener...

This week, the high drama of both European wolf policy and the Eurovision Song Contest. Wolves have made a huge comeback in Europe in recent years. How can we coexist peacefully with these hungry carnivores? We speak to the social scientist Hanna Pettersson about how humans are living alongside predators in Spain and Sweden. Plus, all the controversy from the most chaotic Eurovision in history, an...

Across a fair chunk of Europe, we've grown used to seeing little traffic light symbols on our food packets that supposedly rate the healthiness of our food. But why might Dominic's chamomile tea get a Nutri-Score rating of C, when a diet cola gets an A? And does Giorgia Meloni have a point in claiming that the ratings are biased against Italians? This week we ring up Alie de Boer, an expert on all...

It’s the only revolution in world history (that we know of) that began with a Eurovision song. This week, Portugal marks 50 years since the Carnation Revolution ended decades of dictatorship. We speak to Alex Fernandes, author of a new accessible history of the revolution, about the day that changed everything. We’re also talking about the UK’s missed opportunity to give an entire generation fun m...

A group of Swiss women, all aged 64 and over, made history last week by winning the first ever climate case heard by the European Court of Human Rights. But what does their victory mean for climate policy across Europe? We ring up international courts reporter Molly Quell to find out. We're also talking about an artistic sense-of-humour failure, a Swedish app controversy, and why Polish kids are p...

We are re-airing one of our all time favourite episodes following this week's landmark verdict on the biggest climate case that ever was: KlimaSeniorinnen vs. Switzerland. We reported on the case in depth last year, shortly after the hearing. And now, the court rules: KlimaSeniorinnen win! We usually see young people as the face of climate activism. In this episode, we find out how 2,000 Swiss wom...

We all know this continent has major issues with social mobility. But having a rich ancestor from *six centuries ago* shouldn't make it more likely that you're rich today... should it? This week we speak to Guglielmo Barone, one of the economists behind some fascinating research into this question in Florence. We're also talking about Ursula von der Leyen's 'jobs for the boys' scandal and the road...

This week, music and politics collide. We're talking about Greece's plan to enforce quotas for Greek-language lyrics on the radio, and the racist backlash against Aya Nakamura's rumoured booking for the Paris Olympics. Plus, a great interview with Politico's senior climate reporter Zia Weise about the EU's once-trumpeted nature restoration law. Can the EU still claim to be a world leader when it c...

This week, we're heading to a small country with a big bold foreign policy. Czechia, aka the Czech Republic, has won international praise by negotiating a desperately-needed ammunition deal for Ukraine. Why did it succeed where others have failed? And why is its government so much less scared of China than most others in Europe? We ring up Jakub Janda, Czech security expert and author of a certain...

Scandal-hit Socialists, a surging far-right, and winners that no one can get excited about —  Portugal has just delivered some of this year's trickiest European election results. This week, we ring Politico reporter Aitor Hernández-Morales to untangle the situation. We're also talking about how ChatGPT could speed up Albania's EU membership bid, and Denmark's attempt to fix its horrible gender ine...

This week: two referendums and some dodgy criminal reforms. We're talking about Swiss voters' decision to treat themselves to bigger pensions, and Slovakia's battle to stop cronyism under populist prime minister Robert Fico. And ahead of Ireland's vote on International Women's Day, the historian Caitríona Beaumont joins us to ask: why, according to the Irish constitution, is a woman's place still...

In February 2022, as Russian tanks rolled across the border, the writer and historian Olesya Khromeychuk told us the story of the boots she had bought for her brother, serving at the front in eastern Ukraine. This week, we're sharing her story again.  Olesya's book, '  The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister ', is available in print and as an audiobook. You can find her on Twitter  here . Sound...

Hungary has seen its biggest anti-government protests in years over the past couple of weeks. But just how dangerous is this moment for Viktor Orbán? This week our favourite Hungarysplainer Viktória Serdült joins us to decipher the scandal that has shaken his government. We're also talking about the legalisation of gay marriage in Greece (finally!) and a Dutch court case that could have far-reachi...