EU Scream EU Scream

How did politics long deemed unacceptable go mainstream so quickly? Pundits have blamed disinformation, social media and growing distrust of elites. But these factors don't adequately explain how illiberalism and identitarian ideologies have spread so rapidly even to countries thought to be immune. It's a puzzle Portuguese political scientist Vicente Valentim set out to solve. In this episode Vicente discusses his findings against the backdrop of European Parliament elections that are expecte...

Ireland and Spain are to grant formal recognition to a Palestine state as soon as this month. The move puts Dublin and Madrid at odds with most other EU states and with the United States. Sweden is the only other state to have recognised Palestine during its membership of the EU, and that was a decade ago. In this episode, Tony Connelly, the Europe editor for the Irish public broadcaster RTE, describes the historical and political backdrop to Ireland's decision. Reasons include pressure from ...

Abortion is a deal breaker for some voters. That's the case in the US where Joe Biden is making Donald Trump pay a political price for his role in overturning Roe vs. Wade. That's also been the case in Poland where a wellspring of pro-choice sentiment helped remove the ultraconservative Law and Justice party last year. So could that same dynamic have an impact on voter choice across Europe? Yes, says Nika Kovač, the coordinator of the My Voice, My Choice campaign, which recently launched a pe...

What's the best approach to fighting the hard right? Suppressing toxic views? Or contesting them publicly? The answer lies in the middle of course — an open society must retain the means to reject intolerance and hate. But what's clear from recent events in Brussels is that hasty and ham-fisted bans on the hard right can amplify rather than diminish their message. In this episode the Charlemagne columnist at The Economist Stanley Pignal describes how Brussels mayors sought to shutout a confer...

Some people love Eurovision. Others don't get it. But beyond the camp and kitsch of the annual song contest there's much to observe about the politics of Europe and the wider region. In this episode, author and broadcaster Dave Keating starts with discord between Sweden and France over language. The sourest notes were struck in the mid-1970s after the Swedish group ABBA won with a song in English alluding to the historic French defeat at Waterloo. The French then stepped up their campaign aga...

Opposition to French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura performing at the Paris Olympics is whipped up by the "fachosphère" in France. The former head of the EU Border and Coast Guard joins the far-right and accuses former colleagues of a "project" to encourage migration. Those are just two recent examples of the kinds of prejudice and conspiracy theory that Julie Pascoet confronts at the European Network Against Racism, ENAR. In this episode Julie, who is based in Brussels, talks about poor represen...