Friends of Europe podcasts

Feb 27 2025 269 ep. 39 mins 151

Friends of Europe podcasts artwork

We're a leading think-tank that connects people, stimulates debate and triggers change. Don't forget to tune into our weekly Frankly Speaking Podcast on European and world affairs.

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Policy Voices | Lina Galvez, Chair of FEMM Committee, on feminism, gender backlash, Pelicot and Hermoso

Feb 27 2025 27 mins

The rise of far-right politicians to power across the Western world has led to a normalization of a discourse that many would be ashamed to speak just a few years ago. The normalization of misogyny in the public sphere is just the first step that leads men to think it’s ok to rape a woman because her husband consented for her. Just like what happened to Gisele Pelicot. Ahead of

Policy Voices | Decoding the German elections: Can Merz stop the rise of the AfD?

Feb 27 2025 26 mins

The results are in and Germany chose its new chancellor. To the surprise of no one, Friedrich Merz will succeed Olaf Scholz and Europe can finally get to work after being on hold since November. The challenges are plenty and Germany’s new chancellor has his plate full: not only he has to deliver on migration and the economy, he must do so to avoid even bigger electoral gains fo

Policy Voices | The most consequential week for Europe’s security since February 2022

Feb 20 2025 28 mins

Today marks the end of what was perhaps the most consequential week for the future of Europe’s security and defence since the beginning of the Ukraine war. Still reeling from a shocking security conference in Munich over the weekend, European leaders then gathered in Paris to attempt a coordinated response to America’s provocations. Host Catarina Vila Nova is joined today by Ja

Policy Voices | What is the cost of not doing Carbon Dioxide Removal?

Feb 13 2025 27 mins

This year, the European Union will be working on amending the European Climate Law. The importance of this law cannot be understated: it is the European Climate Law that defines the goal set out in the European Green Deal to become climate-neutral by 2050. Of the many ways possible to become climate-neutral, in this episode of Policy Voices we are focusing on what is a rather nic

Policy Voices | Trump 2.0: How to not lose hope on climate action

Feb 06 2025 30 mins

How to stay hopeful on the fight against climate change during Trump 2.0? Well, a great first step is listening to Helen Mountford. Helen Mountford is the President and CEO of ClimateWorks Foundation, a global platform for philanthropy to scale-up climate solutions, and my guest for today’s episode. Before joining ClimateWorks, Helen worked at Organisation for Economic Cooperat

Policy Voices | Trump 2.0: How to not lose hope on American democracy

Jan 30 2025 29 mins

In just his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders that threaten American democracy and are already being challenged in the courts. With the system of checks and balances in question and a Democratic Party still trying to get back on its feet, in what state is American democracy left? On what is perhaps the most difficult episode of the se

Policy Voices | Trump 2.0: How to not lose hope on Peace, Security, and Defence

Jan 23 2025 31 mins

With Trump back in power it is all too easy to lose hope. As the guest in today’s episode of Policy Voices says, the next few years are going to be “a wild ride”. Nonetheless, there may be some silver linings when it comes to peace, security and defence. For example, as Rose Gottemoeller puts it: NATO countries are in a much better place than they were in 2016 when Trump firs

Policy Voices | NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and the future of the alliance

Dec 12 2024 27 mins

In June, Admiral Pierre Vandier became NATO’s new Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. A few days ago, Admiral Vandier came to Friends of Europe for a conversation with our senior fellow Jamie Shea, who is also the former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO. In this conversation, Jamie asks the Admiral about the role of Supreme Allied

Policy Voices | A “watershed” moment: Is CERN for AI the solution to Europe’s most pressing problems?

Dec 05 2024 27 mins

It has the potential to revolutionise Europe’s AI future but in the midst of all the political drama from the past weeks, you probably didn’t hear about it. Announced in Von der Leyen’s political guidelines for the next Commission, officially it’s called the European AI Research Council, but the Commission President referred to it as the CERN for AI. CERN, of course, being

Policy Voices | From pledges to promises: can developed nations trust they’ll ever see the money from COP?

Nov 28 2024 22 mins

It wouldn’t have been COP if the negotiations had been completed by last Friday – the last scheduled day of the conference. It was a long and drawn out process that only ended when many negotiators were already with their suitcases packed and ready to fly out of Azerbaijan. The petrostate was the stage for the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference and expectations wer