EU Scream EU Scream

When Thomas left Brussels for Ukraine to train as a foreign fighter, he joined up with the Georgian Legion, a paramilitary group that's fought for years to stop Russian aggression. In this episode Thomas and his unit arrive in Kyiv, as part of efforts to try to stop Putin's army from taking the capital. Please note: this is a reedited version of the episode Foreign Fighter Diaries — Part 2.

Listen to Part 1. 
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Thomas lives in Brussels. But last week, seemingly out of the blue, he upped sticks and left. He was already heading into Ukraine when he began sending his first dispatches — simple but captivating voicemails. Thomas is now in the international brigades, which are comprised of foreign fighters from all over the world. Like Thomas, many of the fighters were responding to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's call to help his country in its hour of need. And, like Thomas, they now are patrolling Ukrainian streets against Russian incursions, on Europe's new frontline.
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Policy differences between Europe and Africa have been widening, and while there may be warm words about a new partnership when the leaders of the EU and African Union meet in Brussels, there are unlikely to be breakthroughs on key African demands. One area where Europeans and Africans have long seen eye-to-eye is fighting jihadists, and Europe has not hesitated to ally with African autocrats who promise a measure of stability. Could Françafrique — the French sphere of influence that outlived the end of French colonialism — still be revived on a European scale, as Eurafrique? 
Nick Westcott is the director of the Royal African Society in London and he was the first managing director for Africa at the EU's European External Action Service. Faten Aggad is a senior advisor at the African Climate Foundation and she was formerly a senior advisor for negotiations with the EU with the African Union High Representative in Addis Ababa. Elissa Jobson is director for global advocacy at the International Crisis Group and she was previously the group’s main liaison with the African Union. The Open Society European Policy Institute partnered with EU Scream in making this episode.
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Europe is green. Europe is humane. Europe has defeated populism. These views are common among the EU chattering classes. But they often seem more reflexive than reflective, and some of them amount to shibboleths — beliefs that are outmoded or no longer as useful as they once may have been. In this episode Mehreen Khan of the Financial Times unpacks the European shibboleths that rank among her favourites. Past episodes with Mehreen feature her commentary on race and strategic autonomy; her clairvoyant take on French President Emmanuel Macron's ugly side; and her own brush with his policies on Islam. 




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Freedom of information. Openness. Access to documents. These are names for laws people can use to ask authorities to share information and records. The European Union adopted its access regulation at the turn of this century. But as work went digital, the access rules have failed to keep pace. A lot still goes unrecorded. Or it goes unregistered, and can't be accessed easily, if at all. "There are very important pieces of information that are not coming out," says European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly. The EU access regulation was part of efforts to build public trust. But lax enforcement may be exacerbating the very narrative the EU is seeking to overcome — that it's an elitist and unaccountable political project. Also in this episode: tax expert Martijne Nouwen on the mass deletion of European Commission emails; and journalist Alexander Fanta on messages about vaccine contracts on Ursula von der Leyen's phone.
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Enrico Letta was prime minister of Italy for less than a year before he was ousted by a rival, Matteo Renzi. But a lot happened during Letta's time at the top. After six years in Paris, he's back in Italy and leading the centre-left Democratic Party with a conspicuously progressive agenda on issues like gender equality and LGBT+ rights. Speaking at the Global Progressive Forum, Letta describes the victim-shaming of Italy and Spain during the financial crisis — and he explains how a big bag of money from Brussels called NextGenerationEU may be helping heal the wounds. Letta also calls on the EU to make joint budget support permanent, and he suggests excluding Poland and Hungary from shared European migration and asylum policy to break the deadlock on the issue. 
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