Vienna Coffee House Conversations with Ivan Vejvoda

In this fortnight's episode, Ivan Vejvoda welcomes Karolina Wigura to the podcast for an in-depth look at Poland’s political trajectory. With parliamentary elections looming on October 15th, Karolina analyzes the state of Poland’s democracy amidst the rise of populism. She explains how the ruling Law and Justice party manipulates the media and campaign finance to maintain power and explains how -...

The new season of Vienna Coffee House Conversations opens with Ivan Vejvoda speaking with Hanna Shelest, foreign affairs and security policy expert from Ukraine, for an inside perspective on the Russo-Ukrainian war. As Europe debates how to support Ukraine and potentially extend EU membership, Hanna provides insights from the ground on the current state of the conflict. She discusses the resilienc...

In this week's episode Ivan Vejvoda sits down with European Stability Initiative deputy chairman and Europe's Futures fellow Kristof Bender to discuss a policy that many point to as among the most successful peace projects in the history of the world: EU enlargement. As the Union decides whether and how quickly to extend EU membership to Ukraine and Molodova and formalize their move towards Europe...

In this week's episode Ivan Vejvoda is joined by Balázs Jarábik to consider the future of Ukraine and its neighbours in a Europe forever changed by the full-scale Russian invasion of February 24th, 2022. How will extending the embrace of the EU and NATO as signaled by Western European leaders impact the global situation? What will be the on-the-ground effects of the war for Moldova, the territory...

Writer, editor and prominent intellectual Oksana Forostyna joins Ivan Vejvoda from Lviv to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine, her recent essay on Ukrainian jokes and humour and their importance as a shield against trauma and aggression, the political life of the country during wartime; and daily family life during these difficult years. A co-founder of Yakaboo Publishing Oksana was chosen f...

As Europeans reckon once again with the challenges of war on their continent, has the pressing issue of climate change fallen by the wayside as governments have scrambled to contend with even more immediate concerns? How can the EU work toward greater independence and security while still reacting appropriately to the environmental threat of global warming? In this conversation Senior Advisor at O...

This week Ivan Vejvoda is joined by Johns Hopkins University - School of Advanced International Studies adjunct professor and former foreign policy advisor to the Romanian presidential administration Veronica Anghel to discuss the state of EU enlargement policy in 2023. As the continent redefines itself, its security and its long-term objectives in the shadow of the full scale Russian invasion of...

This week Europe's Futures fellow and editor at N1 Television, CNN affiliate for the Adria-Balkans region, Ivana Dragičević talks to Ivan Vejvoda about Europe's youth and the shifting cultural and geopolitical forces that are shaping how young people see the world they are set to inherit. What to make of a trend that sees voter turnout waning while other forms of political engagement surge? Are th...

In this episode, Director of Rome's Institute for International Affairs and 22/23 Europe's Futures Fellow of IWM and ERSTE Foundation Nathalie Tocci joins Ivan Vejvoda to offer her assessment of the European response to the full-scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine. From the often surprising unity and speed with which the EU has adapted to economic, energy and geopolitical challenges to the more frau...

In a wide ranging conversation that aims to provide a strategic overview of the former Soviet Union as its constituent countries reconfigure their relationships with each other, with the Russian government and with the rest of the world - Ivan Vejvoda and  Thomas de Waal reckon with the complex dynamics of power and shifting influences a year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. From the EU fa...

In this conversation, Ivan Vejvoda talks to Carnegie Europe visiting scholar and COP26 attendee Olivia Lazard about the European Green Deal - the series of policy initiatives described by Ursula Von Der Leyen as Europe's 'man-on-the-moon moment'. While decarbonisation is unquestionably desirable and necessary should we think of 'the environment'  as including the geopolitical, and social environme...

The Conference on the Future of Europe - a multi-year consultation that aims to set an agenda for the reform of EU policies and institutions in the medium to long term by inviting participation from EU citizens and civil society - is ongoing following the launch of its digital platform in April 2021. Does the conference represent a new frontier in deliberative democracy or does it give undue promi...

This week Ivan Vejvoda is in conversation with the director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations Janka Oertel. Against a backdrop of rising global temperatures and the pledges made at the COP 26 summit in Glasgow last year, Oertel and Vejvoda consider the pivotal role that China will play in determining whether humanity can achieve its stated aim and keep warming belo...

In this episode Ivan Vejvoda speaks with award-winning international correspondent and Europe's Futures fellow Amanda Coakley about the rollback of women's reproductive rights in Central Europe following abortion's effective outlawing in Poland when a judgement of the country's constitutional tribunal came in to force in January 2021 limiting abortion to cases where the pregnancy was the result of...

Zoran Nechev heads the Center for EU integration at the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” Skopje, a Macedonian think tank organisation devoted to research and capacity-building in matters related to EU in general, and the enlargement process more specifically. He is an IWM Europe's Futures fellow, a member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universite...

A renowned public figure and director of the Global Focus Center in Romania, Ivan Vejvoda's guest this week is Oana Popescu-Zamfir. Bringing a wealth of academic and government experience to the Europe's Future's programme, Oana is also the director of the Democratic Resilience Index: the first quantitative instrument specifically designed to measure the robustness of democratic institutions aroun...

In this episode Ivan Vejvoda talks with Valbona Zeneli, professor of national security studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. Born in Albania, Dr. Zeneli is an economist with an interest in international economics, good governance and international security politics. In a complex discussion, Zeneli and Vejvoda trace the web of Chinese economic...

In this first podcast of our second season, Soli Özel and Ivan Vejvoda discuss the ongoing refocusing of the US's attention on the Indo-Pacific region and the attendant disengagement of the Superpower from the theaters that defined its international relationships during the cold war. Tracing the line of recent history from the so-called 'Obama doctrine' through the Trump presidency and up to the B...

Focusing on the arguments in her latest book – Capitalism On Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia – Ivan Vejvoda and Albena Azmanova discuss the future of Guy Standing’s “precariat”, that class of people whom late capitalism has condemned to live without predictability or security and who are asked to take ever greater risks with ever diminishing prospec...

In this fortnight's Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to Judy Dempsey, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor-in-chief of its Strategic Europe blog . Formerly a columnist for the International New York Times, Germany Correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and Eastern Europe correspondent for the Financial Times - she has borne witness to the tribulations of Eur...

In the latest Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vjevoda speaks to political activism expert, Head of Communications at Forum Alpbach and Europe's Futures fellow Teresa Reiter about the way that history is taught, utlisised and remembered in twenty-first century Europe. From the ways that national foreign policy shapes curricula to the tendency to write the recent history of the Western Balkan...

In this fortnight's Vienna Coffee House Conversation, Ivan Vejvoda speaks to EU diplomat and academic Julia De Clerck-Sachsse about the power of narratives to shape policy and the future of the European project. Was Barack Obama right to say that "perhaps [Europe needs] an outsider, somebody who is not European, to remind [it] of the magnitude of what [it has] achieved"? As enlargement proceeds an...

Wolfgang Merkel is on twitter @merkel_wolfgang and his most recent book, Democracy and Crisis: Challenges in Turbulent Times is available from Springer. His 2020 article 'Who Governs in Deep Crises?" can be read at Berghahn . Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined fo...

Srdjan Cvijic is on twitter @srdjancvijic .   Dr. Cvijic is frequently sought out by the media and has published extensively, in both academic and policy format, on EU foreign relations and the politics of the Balkans  Previously Dr. Cvijic was a senior diplomat posted in the missions of the Republic of Serbia in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dr. Cvijic also worked as the advisor for the Special Co...

Dimitar Bechev is on twitter @DimitarBechev and his most recent book, Rival Power: Russia's Influence in Southeast Europe is available from Amazon UK here | Amazon DE here Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM where, in cooperation with leading European organisations and think tanks IWM and ERSTE Foundation have joined forces to tackle some of the most crucial topics: nexus...