The Europeans

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 Eurovisio

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,

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 e

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 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

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' scan

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

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 aut

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 h

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 wom