Podcast
EU Scream
Hosted by EU Scream · EN
Politics podcast from Brussels
19episodes
Episodes
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Political Communication in the New Age of Spectacle
3w ago00:56:11Summary readySedate and unflashy international institutions are in a struggle for attention in this new age of spectacle. In a step change aimed at addressing the challenge, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, last year paid a group of content creators around €100,000 for making videos about free movement across national borders under the Schengen Agreement. This month it emerged that the European Council, which organizes EU leaders' meetings, will invite social media influencers to summits starting this summer. The initiatives are acknowledgement that the dynamics of political communications have changed with the rise of social media, which demands high levels of emotionality and relatability. In this episode, Peter Van Aelst, a professor at the University of Antwerp and a prominent media commentator, shares his findings on the increasingly demonstrative tone used by politicians over the past 15 years. Negative emotions like anger are prevalent—especially among radical right and hard-left parties. But the findings also show politicians using more positive messaging as a strategy to foster goodwill as well as capture attention. One example is Bart De Wever, the Belgian prime minister, who has become a sensation on Instagram by posting videos with his cat Maximus. That has helped soften his hardline Flemish nationalist image. At the level of the EU, questions remain about the authenticity and effectiveness of paid influencer content and about whether it could eventually veer into propaganda. There also are calls to regulate outside influencers to ensure they aren't being paid by hostile actors. Yet another concern is reliance for distribution of influencer content on opaque US platforms owned by multinationals like Meta and X that are aligned with the Trump administration's hostility to European digital standards and regulations.Support the show
SummaryEp.127: One Energy Shock After Another
Apr 1901:02:24Summary readyEnergy prices have exploded as a result of the Trump Administration's war on Iran. It's another opportunity for Europe to shield itself against the kind of fossil fuel shock that hit four years ago when Russia curtailed gas supplies to Europe. There are some positive signs. Frank Elderson, a key figure at the European Central Bank, is calling fossil fuels a severe threat to the stability of the financial system. The defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary removes a vehemently pro-fossil voice from the European Council. And then there's the upcoming Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels co-organized by The Netherlands and Colombia. But there's also a strong risk this moment will be wasted. Governments are shoveling tax breaks at drivers and diminishing the incentive to change behavior, and there's stiff resistance to an EU-level windfall tax on excess fossil fuel profits. Meanwhile Germany is mulling keeping coal connected longer than planned, and Italy has sought to suspend the Emissions Trading System that underpins the entirety of EU climate policy. In this episode: a conversation with Bas Eickout, a prominent Dutch lawmaker. Bas is co-leader of the Greens group at the European Parliament and, as a member of the chamber's governing body, among its dozen most influential figures. Bas describes how he's pushing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on electrification targets so as to ensure the current crisis doesn't go to waste. He also discusses the European politicians who share ownership for the crisis by impeding the transition from fossil dependency. Among the candidates: Kadri Simson, Jörgen Warborn, Manfred Weber, Fernand Kartheiser, and Mark Rutte. But there's also the question of how the Greens themselves should play this moment. For years Greens have been a punching bag for the far-right's culture wars. And although polls consistently show voters favor climate-friendly policies, that's not translated into widespread victories at the ballot box. To improve their electoral performance, Bas's own Green-Left party is forming a new party, Progressive Netherlands, with the Dutch social democrats. But Bas says similar tie-ups are unlikely, at least for now, in other EU countries.Support the show
SummaryEp.126: Freedom in the Age of the Algorithm
Mar 801:29:20Summary readyTech bros like to blabber about AI and the end of the world. But the more plausible catastrophe they'll unleash is severe inequality and economic distress. As anger and panic grows over the automation of labor, the technology industry is casting around for a new social license to operate. One vogueish idea is some form of Universal Basic Income, or UBI: a regular cash income paid to all, on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. The most important experiment to date into how a basic income could work was funded by Sam Altman of OpenAI, the organization that developed ChatGPT. One thousand people in the US states of Illinois and Texas were given $1,000 a month obligation free between 2020 and 2023. But Altman's vision for how the new-look social assistance would work is deeply flawed. That's the verdict of Philippe Van Parijs, the celebrated philosopher and author of a landmark book on basic income (Harvard, 2017). Altman's recent proposals, where the public gets a share of a promised AI bonanza in exchange for innovation without limits, would fail to protect the public against the vicissitudes that a basic income is meant to address. In this live recording from the Flagey theater in Brussels, Philippe sets out the history and philosophy of an idea that has stirred thinkers and social-justice advocates for half a millennium, from 16th-century Flanders to 21st-century Silicon Valley. Among the figures featured in the show: Renaissance humanist Juan Luis Vives; Belgian social theorist Joseph Charlier; Louisiana Governor and US Senator Huey Long; bandleader Ina Ray Hutton; economist John Kenneth Galbraith; and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. With special thanks to Hywel Jones for musical accompaniment, Paulo Cotrim for production, and Diana Dzjamaldaeva for sound engineering.Support the show
SummaryEp.125: The Geopolitics of Whiteness
Feb 2400:47:07Summary readyEuropean leaders are failing to pushback against racist messaging from the Trump Administration, signaling their acceptance of a new geopolitics of whiteness. Among the most recent examples is a standing ovation for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference after he celebrated the colonial era and reprised warnings about a so-called civilizational erasure of Europe by migrants. The stated reason for the clapping in Munich was the softer tone on Europe taken by Rubio compared to that taken by US Vice President JD Vance a year earlier. In reality, the governing elites in Europe have a good deal more in common with the Trump Administration than most would care to admit. For one, Washington and Brussels both are seeking to justify a radical expansion of migration and asylum policies that brutalize large numbers of black and brown people inside and outside their borders. The difference is that the Europeans have historically sought to obfuscate such actions, says Emmanuel Achiri of the European Network Against Racism. By contrast the Trump Administration bluntly advertises its brutality by announcing ICE operations in racialized communities and posting white supremacist memes to official social media channels. In this episode: Emmanuel unpacks the origins of whiteness in Europe and North America; he examines the use whiteness by the Trump Administration as a main plank of US foreign policy; and he explains how violence on Europe's borders is often effectively invisibilized in what amounts to a form of necropolitics.Support the show
SummaryEp.124: Machiavellian Moment in the Arctic
Jan 1500:46:15Summary readyGermany and Sweden are among states deploying troops to Greenland. Yet Trump's power play for the island in the wake of his Venezuela raid has left much of Europe bewildered. As author and historian Luuk van Middelaar observes, the continent's geostrategic vulnerability has barged, uninvited, into view, and Europeans now are confronting the possibility of being pushed to the margins of a newly assertive American empire and left powerless. It’s the type of situation Luuk identifies as a Machiavellian Moment, a term borrowed from historian J.G.A. Pocock to describe the instant when polities must exchange lofty ideals, aimed at creating a more perfect future, for amoral strategies, to survive a perilous present. The EU "almost lived outside time," says Luuk, but now must contend with the prospect that “the EU no longer exists." Addressing its own mortality and meeting the Machiavellian Moment implies shedding a habitual, almost pedagogical approach to policymaking and favoring improvisation and action, such as converting car plants to armaments factories, creating a European Security Council, and moving ahead with a multinational presence on Greenland. The deployment, albeit tiny, for now, shows “strategic maturity” and should change "the calculus for Trump” by increasing the risk of an armed conflict with allies, says Luuk, who is founding director of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics. Yet brinksmanship with the United States could hasten an unravelling of the NATO alliance. And other vexed questions loom. What becomes of a geopolitical European project that leans more toward Machiavelli than Monnet and is stripped of its higher ideals? And does an emboldened Europe risk reinvigorating a neo-colonialist mindset? Support the show
SummaryEp.123: Owned, Extorted, and Gaslit
Dec 1701:12:11Summary readySince returning to the White House on Jan. 20, Donald Trump has imposed one-sided tariffs on the European Union, forced the bloc to commit to buying vast quantities of American natural gas, and effectively threatened annexation of Greenland. The latest indignity for Europe includes a White House National Security Strategy that calls on far-right parties to muster patriotic resistance to European policies. Instead of standing up to this blatant foreign interference, EU leaders have repeatedly tried to appease Trump and avoid any possible escalations of tension — even at the cost of their dignity. Examples include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen weakening EU environmental and digital regulations in line with American demands, and NATO Secretary General Marc Rutte addressing Trump as "daddy" in front of the world's media. Trump may be the proximate cause of this annus horribilis for the EU. But the reasons for subservience run far deeper, says Dave Keating, a broadcaster and the author of a new book, The Owned Continent. A key factor is US command and control over the NATO military alliance, which Europe has relied on for protection from Russia for nearly eight decades. Trump and Maga are now openly exploiting that military dependency, amid Russia's assault on Ukraine, to block European regulation of tech oligarchs and fossil fuels. "Never before has there been an explicit connection from the US government between the military protectorate and EU policy," says Dave, who says the extortion is "a first" for the Trump administration. Another factor behind the European reluctance to treat the US in a more adversarial fashion, even as Maga amps up its belligerence, is the pervasiveness of American culture through cinema, news media, social media and streaming platforms. "Europeans are inundated by American culture from birth" says Dave. That also makes it "hard to accept that the US is a threat." Freeing Europe from its long vassalage is a strategic priority that starts with creation sovereign EU defense capabilities, says Dave. But that would require acknowledging that France was right to resist reliance on US military systems and hardware. It also would require Europe to make a decisive break with Atlanticism, an ideology that prioritizes NATO and that remains deeply entrenched among EU elites and in Poland and the Baltics. But Atlanticism may be an increasingly hard sell. It relies on increasingly implausible assumptions: that the US will keep large numbers of troops in Europe and uphold its mutual defense commitment under the NATO treaty despite abundant evidence otherwise. "At what point do citizens say, 'enough is enough, we've had it with these centrist European leaders lying to us, gaslighting us'?" Dave asks. "If Europeans keep electing these people, then they are signing their own death warrant as a sovereign continent." SOMO report on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.The Authoritarian Stack project on the threat posed by tech billionaires. Support the show
SummaryEp.122: Anti-LGBT as a Strategic Threat
Nov 1200:50:53Summary readyThe lurch rightwards in our politics has brought a wave of disinformation and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people. As well as exacerbating prejudice, the anti-LGBTIQ+ campaigns, many supported by US evangelicals and Russian oligarchs, foment social divisions and aim to weaken liberal democracy. That's why the new era of bigotry should be seen as a strategic threat for Europe, former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar explains in this episode. Leo is currently a Senior Fellow for the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School. He stepped down as Taoiseach last year after serving two terms and making history as Ireland's first openly gay head of government. Among Leo's current concerns: how US diplomats and corporate executives who formerly supported LGBT rights have changed position or melted away, leaving regions like Central and Eastern Europe especially vulnerable. "The fact that America is withdrawing from that space has left it open to Russia," says Leo. "That’s where I think the European Union needs to come in and needs in many ways I think to fill the space of the Americans." A particular focus is Hungary, the EU state that is the subject of what Rémy Bonny, executive director of Forbidden Colours, calls the largest human rights lawsuit in the bloc's history. That lawsuit concerns a so-called child-protection law that censors inclusive sex education, equates LGBTI lifestyles with pedophilia, blocks adoption for LGBTI couples, and restricts content in media and advertising. A top advisor has already issued a preliminary finding against Hungary and the Court of Justice of the EU is expected to reach a verdict next year. A definitive ruling against Hungary "can't go without a meaningful response" from EU authorities, says Leo. "The treaties are worth nothing if that's the case." When it comes to EU politics, Leo encourages a return to centrist leadership rather than reliance by his political family, the center-right European People's Party, on the possibility of majorities with the far right. "I much prefer us being in alliance with Liberals and Social Democrats and Greens." Leo also critiques fellow conservative Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, for saying "too little, too late" about homophobia in Hungary — and about Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza. Even so von der Leyen does "come around to the right position eventually, which is better than the reverse." As for Donald Trump, who Leo met several times as Taoiseach, the US president is taking a far more hostile approach to LGBT rights compared to his first term. Whether Trump actually leaves office after 2027 general could come down to the US military. "It's a dangerous time." Asked whether he could have done more as Taoiseach to regulate the giant US tech companies that have bases in Ireland, Leo says he oversaw stepped up enforcement during his time in office. There was however a wider failure, where tech companies still are shielded from liability for the illegal and highly polarizing content hosted on their platforms. "We allowed them to really get away with this idea that they're not publishers" and "that wasn't right," says Leo, who says he supports a crackdown on algorithms that amplify hate and toxicity.Support the show
SummaryEp.121: Ungoverning the EU
Oct 3100:53:26Summary readyThe buzzword in Brussels is simplification. In reality it’s a euphemism for sweeping deregulation and it marks a dramatic U-turn for the European Union. For decades, the EU prided itself on being a regulatory superpower, capable of extending its influence through protective and demanding regulation. That's now changing. A year ago Mario Draghi, the former president of the European Central Bank, dusted off the timeworn idea of cutting red tape. Draghi's message was eagerly embraced by many EU leaders, many from conservative and far-right parties, and many of them increasingly aligned with Trumpian ideas on blocking migrants, ignoring the environment and canceling overseas aid. Draghi's ideas have since snowballed. In the works are measures to water down laws on everything from technology and chemicals to farming and finance. Executing on those plans, and more, is European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen. She’s been using the deregulation mantra to deflect criticism from her far-right rivals and to placate US tech giants and Donald Trump and his threats to abandon Europe militarily. To be sure deregulation is having a moment. In Argentina, in India, and in the US where Elon Musk's DOGE dismantled entire agencies, almost certainly illegally, and where Russ Vought at Trump's budget office says wants to put civil servants in trauma. The approach in Europe is far less blunt and belligerent. But there are significant parallels according to Alberto Alemanno, the law professor at HEC Paris and the founder of The Good Lobby. Alberto sees an ideological and methodological alignment across the Atlantic that includes the sidelining of legislators, the privileging of executive fiat, and the possible DOGE-style downsizing of the European Commission. Alberto also warns that von der Leyen is "pushing towards illegality" by bundling together deregulatory measures in so called omnibus laws that bypass the usual channels of evidence-based policymaking and of democratic consent. The European Ombudsman, Teresa Anjinho, has opened an investigation into the omnibus process. But her opinions are non-binding. Meanwhile EU governments are pushing for continuous rollbacks, and von der Leyen has promised to deliver. But there is a deeper unease here, that simplification is not just about deregulation, or pandering to Trump, or the far right, rather that simplification will end up undermining the capacity and legitimacy of EU administration itself. A pair of US academics have described this phenomenon as ungoverning, discrediting institutions and the machinery of government and creating circumstances where enforcement and the rule of law suffer and authoritarians can thrive. Alberto doesn’t see the quite the same deliberate campaign in Europe as in the US. But he warns that von der Leyen’s willingness to take a chainsaw to previously agreed laws — and to act as little more than the executor of member states’ demands — is a kind of dereliction of duty that risks permanently weakening the Union at a moment when many Europeans are looking for answers beyond national borders. As Alberto puts it: the EU is becoming ungoverned — by its own political class.Support the show
SummaryEp.120: Hungary’s Deepening Dependency on Russian Oil
Oct 700:29:39Summary readyThree years ago, as part of efforts to weaken Putin's war chest, the EU banned imports of Russian crude oil. But those countries with a high dependency on Russia were allowed to continue importing, the idea being they needed more time to adapt. Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic have since stopped. But not Slovakia, and not Hungary. Both still take deliveries of Russian crude through the Soviet-era Druzhba or "Brotherhood" pipeline. In this episode, Attila Steiner, the Hungarian State Secretary for Energy, acknowledges that his country is increasing, not decreasing, dependency on Russian crude, and that Hungary is expanding links with the Druzhba network. That's not how EU sanctions are supposed to work. It's also fundamentally at odds with the REPowerEU plan to stop all Russian oil imports by the end of 2027. The behavior of Hungary, which is facilitating Russian oil exports amid Putin's continued assault on Ukraine, shows contempt for Brussels and Kyiv. Moreover an alternative to Russian oil already exists in the form of the Adria pipeline that can deliver oil from suppliers like Kazakhstan via Croatia. But Steiner using the Adria is neither advantageous for Hungary nor for its giant energy conglomerate MOL. And, in any case, it looks like the pressure is off Hungary to quit Russian crude, at least for now. Steiner credits a recent diplomatic campaign by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, first with Donald Trump, who is no longer calling on Hungary to change suppliers, and second, with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who effectively gave her blessing to continuing Russian crude imports. But that's unlikely to be the end of the story. There's domestic politics to consider too. Hungary imposes a tax on the profits that are partly generated from importing the relatively low-priced Russian crude. Yet prices at the petrol pump remain above the EU average, and that contributes to an already delicate political situation for Orbán's ruling Fidesz party, which is trailing in the polls ahead of elections next year. It's also a delicate situation for Steiner himself. He seems set to go head-to-head with Péter Magyar, the main opposition figure in Hungary who opposes Russian imports, in a forthcoming contest for a parliamentary seat in Budapest. That, Steiner says, will be "an interesting fight".Support the show
SummaryEp.119: Post-Truth Nation
Sep 1401:00:02Summary readyThere is an expanding landscape of lies, distortions, and half-truths shaping global politics. The latest instance is the immediate blame heaped on the left for the killing of Charlie Kirk despite evidence that right-leaning attacks are more common. It's one more sign that the line between reality and fabrication is getting blurrier. And as misinformation metastasizes, there are mounting concerns about whether democratic institutions can survive. This episode turns a spotlight on Slovakia, the central European nation that's become a hotspot for post-truth politics. Seven years ago, Prime Minister Robert Fico was forced from power after the execution-style murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée. But Fico made a comeback, formed a coalition with the far right, and now is surrounded by an array of ultranationalist reactionaries, white supremacists and delusional post-truthers. They include Rudolf Huliak, the misogynistic tourism minister; Peter Kotlár, the Covid denier who takes his cue from RFK Jr.; Filip Kuffa, the state secretary for the environment who mocks endangered species; Lukáš Machala, a powerful official prone to flat-earth theories; and his boss, Martina Šimkovičová, an aggressively homophobic culture minister who is putting Slovakia's public broadcaster under political control. That makes Slovakia a key test for the European Commission and for its new Media Freedom Act, which aims to stop political interference in editorial decisions. But whether the Commission will take action remains an open question. Like other leaders of would-be autocracies, Fico uses strategies to feign compliance to throw up roadblocks to enforcement. There are also geopolitical concerns. What if enforcement pushes Slovakia even further into the Kremlin's orbit? That’s the wrong question says Pavol Szalai of Reporters sans frontières. In reality the Commission's failure to act would expose Slovakia to yet more post-truth, pro-Russia messaging that weakens the EU's ability to defend Ukraine and itself. In this episode: Pavol describes how the EU can help Slovakia combat a trend that's hobbled media in Hungary, left Polish media in disarray, and that promises to damage media in Czechia if, as expected, the far right comes to power there in October.Support the show
Summary