Mark Leonard's World in 30 Minutes

This week Mark Leonard is joined by Nevada Joan Lee , a policy fellow in ECFR’s US programme, and Stephen Wertheim , a senior fellow in the American Statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Together they discuss what the imminent midterms mean for American foreign policy until the end of Donald Trump’s second term—and for Democratic foreign policy in the future. The US...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Andrew Small , head of ECFR’s Asia programme, to discuss how Chinese industrial overcapacity is threatening European deindustrialisation—and what Europe can do about it. Over the summer, Europe’s approach to China shifted markedly. At the June 2026 European Council, leaders were largely united in seeing the surge of Chinese exports as a serious threat to European i...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Guntram Wolf , senior fellow at Bruegel and professor of economics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Pierre Heilbronn , former vice-president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and France’s former special envoy for Ukraine’s relief and reconstruction. Together, they discuss the European debate around the next Multiannual Financial Frame...

In late September, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from the Madrid flat she had lived in for seven decades, sparking nationwide protests over Spain’s housing crisis. Pedro Sánchez’s government responded with two emergency housing decrees which Congress rejected on October 2nd. Three days later, the prime minister dissolved parliament and called for a snap election on November 29th. Sánc...

In September 2025, Binyamin Netanyahu told Israelis their country was in “a sort of isolation” and would need to become a “super-Sparta”: its economy would have “autarkic characteristics” and its arms industry would be able to produce what it needs. This vision of Israel is a long way from the close ties to the West the country’s founders foresaw. Beth Oppenheim’s new web special for ECFR argues t...

This week Mark Leonard welcomes Aslı Aydıntaşbaş , associate senior policy fellow at ECFR and a fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution in Washington, to discuss a recent policy brief for ECFR, authored alongside Evren Balta , professor of international relations at Özyeğin University in Istanbul. In their brief, Aslı and Evren argue that Turkey is an “emb...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Jana Kobzova , co-director of ECFR’s European Security programme, to discuss the mounting pressures facing Ukraine as it enters another wartime winter. Despite Ukraine’s success in disrupting Russian logistics and energy infrastructure, Russia has intensified its attacks on cities, energy networks and civilian targets, while Kyiv faces growing domestic politica...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Cary Fowler , founder and president of the Food Security Leadership Council and former US global food security envoy, and Jim O’Brien , ECFR distinguished visiting fellow and former US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.  As conflict, climate change and geopolitical fragmentation converge, there is a growing risk of a global foo...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Jana Puglierin, senior policy fellow and head of ECFR’s Berlin office, in a World in 30 Minutes Emergency Room episode to discuss the latest in German politics. The AfD’s win in the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt was widely expected, but the scale of the result and the collapse of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) have still shocke...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Ellie Geranmayeh , deputy director of ECFR's Middle East and North Africa programme, to unpack a volatile new chapter in the confrontation between the United States and Iran. After months of managed escalation, military strikes have resumed and President Donald Trump has launched an ambitious new sanctions package, dubbed an economic “D-Day”, aimed at squeezing...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Hugh Lovatt , senior policy fellow at ECFR, to unpack a turbulent summer in Israel and the Palestinian territories. While Palestinian factions in Gaza have agreed in principle to decommission their weapons , the proposal faces significant obstacles, not least opposition from the Israeli government. Meanwhile settler violence is surging and settlement constructi...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Janka Oertel , director of ECFR’s DARE* initiative, and Andrew Small , head of ECFR’s Asia programme, to examine the growing impact of the “China shock 2.0” on Germany and Europe.  A new wave of Chinese competition, driven by overcapacity and state-backed industrial strength, is hitting sectors such as car manufacturing, chemicals and machine tools. German...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Jörg Lau , international correspondent at Die Zeit and Jana Puglierin , head of ECFR’s Berlin office, to explore the political turmoil in Germany ahead of an electoral autumn. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is becoming increasingly unpopular: it faces collapsing approval ratings, growing tension within the governing coalition and mounting pressure from...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Adriana Abdenur, a Brazilian policy expert and co-president of the Global Fund for a New Economy, and Jorge Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico and professor at Sciences Po, to explore debates about development and ideas of strategic autonomy across Latin America. Jorge explains why China’s role is varied across the region, arguing that Mexico and much...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by LuHan Gabel , associate director of the Ideas Workshop at the Open Society Foundations; Ooi Kee Beng , political historian and executive director of the Penang Institute; and Chelsea Nguyen , research assistant in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics. LuHan highlights how young people in China are increasingly questioning th...

This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Loubna El Amine , lecturer in political theory at King’s College London and affiliate of the Lau China Institute, and Cobus van Staden , head of research at the China-Global South Project. They draw on insights from Africa and the Middle East to examine how younger generations in these regions view China, Europe and the US, and together they discuss the new “Ch...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Camille Grand , secretary general of ASD Europe and special adviser to ECFR’s European Security programme, and Marta Prochwicz Jazowska , deputy head of ECFR’s Warsaw office and policy fellow, to discuss what the outcome of the NATO summit in Ankara means for Europe’s security. They draw on ECFR’s recent policy brief “Making defence European again” to assess whethe...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Célia Belin , head of ECFR’s Paris office and senior policy fellow, and Jeremy Cliffe , ECFR’s editorial director and senior policy fellow, to discuss Marine Le Pen’s decision to run in France’s 2027 presidential election. After a Paris appeal court ruling rescinded her ban from holding public office, Le Pen has reasserted leadership of the far-right National Rally...

This week, Mark Leonard speaks to Mike Kuiken , vice chair of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and Randy Schriver , chair of the commission and former US assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, about US-China relations in this period of heightened geopolitical uncertainty.  The war in Iran and Russia’s war against Ukraine are raising questions ab...

It is ten years since Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, and the country is once again facing political upheaval. Keir Starmer has resigned as prime minister after his Labour rival Andy Burnham’s decisive victory in the Makerfield by-election. At the same time, ECFR has released new research which suggests that the public view on Brexit has evolved significantly—despite much of the po...

This week, Julien Barnes-Dacey welcomes Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud , Saudi Arabia’s minister of foreign affairs, for a fireside chat at ECFR’s Annual Council Meeting. In Prince Faisal’s first public appearance since the Iran-US memorandum of understanding was announced, he and Julien discuss what the deal means for the prospect of stability in the Middle East. Prince Faisal argues that the m...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Carl Benedikt Frey , associate professor of AI and work at the Oxford Internet Institute and author of How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation and the Fate of Nations , to discuss whether AI enthusiasm is obscuring a more fundamental problem: the global slowdown in productivity and innovation. Carl argues that technological progress is neither inevitable nor guar...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Anton Jäger , lecturer in politics at Oxford University and author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization Without Political Consequences , to discuss why political engagement is surging across Western democracies—even as traditional political institutions continue to weaken. Anton argues that the West has entered a “hyperpolitics” era, marked by intense political...

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Liam Byrne , a British Labour Party MP and chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee, to talk about the rise of right-wing populism across Europe and why mainstream politics is struggling to respond. Drawing on his new book, Why Populists are Winning and How to Beat Them , Byrne argues that widening wealth gap, declining local communities an...

This week,  Mark Leonard  is joined by Kelsey Davenport , director for non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, and Ellie Geranmayeh , deputy director of ECFR’s Middle East and North Africa programme, to introduce ECFR’s Iran nuclear monitor . The new online tool, updated monthly, forecasts Iran’s nuclear programme after a year of Israeli and American strikes, and maps possible pa...