EU Scream

Ep.130: Live Behind the News on Disinfo, Deportations, Corruption 30.06.2026 1h 1min

Straight talk on what's behind the news, recorded live at the Full Circle in Brussels. Estelle Nilsson-Julien, a reporter with Euronews, describes the killings of two very different young men, Quentin Deranque and Henry Nowak. The tragedies unleashed torrents of disinformation that put more lives at risk. Both are now held up as martyrs by the far-right. Estelle also profiles the travel influencer sanctioned by the EU but who still peddles Russian propaganda on Elon Musk's X social medi...

Ep.129: Sovereignty and Software 22.06.2026 57min

A handful of American technology companies provide the backbone for much of the world's digital activity, including in public services. But with the current US administration signaling a shift to autocratic government, dystopic scenarios abound about how this plays out. While warnings about an era of technofascism could be overdone, the hazards from US government proximity to Big Tech are no longer theoretical. In response Europe is doubling down on what it calls technological sovereignty, to...

Political Communication in the New Age of Spectacle 16.05.2026 56min

Sedate 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 ...

Ep.127: One Energy Shock After Another 19.04.2026 1h 2min

Energy 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 ...

Ep.126: Freedom in the Age of the Algorithm 08.03.2026 1h 29min

Tech 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...

Ep.125: The Geopolitics of Whiteness 24.02.2026 47min

European 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 ...

Ep.124: Machiavellian Moment in the Arctic 15.01.2026 46min

Germany 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 Machia...

Ep.123: Owned, Extorted, and Gaslit 17.12.2025 1h 12min

Since 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 ...

Ep.122: Anti-LGBT as a Strategic Threat 12.11.2025 50min

The 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 current...

Ep.121: Ungoverning the EU 31.10.2025 53min

The 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 ...

Ep.120: Hungary’s Deepening Dependency on Russian Oil 07.10.2025 29min

Three 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 Sec...

Ep.119: Post-Truth Nation 14.09.2025 1h

There 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, th...

Ep.118: Putting Guardrails On Playing God 16.07.2025 1h 1min

The recent European heatwave killed some 2,300 people with more than half of deaths attributable to human-caused climate change. But what if temperatures can be lowered using technology? It's a highly charged question. One of the ideas out there is to create a parasol of particles around the earth to reflect sunlight back into space. Cooling the planet this way is known as solar geoengineering. Many Europeans reject geoengineering outright. They say nobody should be playing God with the clima...

Ep.117: Countdown to Budapest Pride 25.06.2025 32min

Millions of people in more than a hundred countries march at Pride festivities each year. Attendees come mostly to express support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, queer and intersex people — the LGBTQI+ community. And although Pride may be on every continent, there's a swathe of countries where Pride still is not freely celebrated. Take Russia, where a court last decade issued a one-hundred-year ban on Pride events. Or Turkey, where police in recent years have been harassing, attack...

Ep.116: Gaza, Staatsräson, and von der Leyen 05.06.2025 47min

An initial wave of support for Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages has been eclipsed by 20 months of reprisals in which Israel has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians in Gaza including thousands of children. Public support for Israel is sinking and the country's staunchest allies are rowing back. Even so, a huge gap remains between the political rhetoric and the reality of what Israel's partners are doing to stop the atrocities. Among t...

Ep.115: A Real Nuclear Option for Orbán's Hungary 30.04.2025 35min

Call it the real nuclear option for bringing Viktor Orbán's Hungary to heel — but also call it a risky thought experiment. Tom Theuns of Leiden University wants to empower the EU to sever ties with a rogue member state like Hungary, where Orbán has fashioned an autocracy and set about cultivating the EU's strategic rivals. Introducing an expulsion threat could push EU autocrats like Orbán to show more respect for rule of law and democracy, says Tom, while the current lack of any such mechanis...

Ep.114: High Noon for the Digital Services Act 29.03.2025 56min

Musk, Zuckerberg and Vance have stomped into the EU's canteen, overturned the tables, smashed the glasses, and drawn their pistols. They are scanning a crowd of bewildered Eurocrats and asking menacingly: who really wants a fight over what belongs online? It wasn't meant to be this way. Three years ago the EU agreed a landmark law, the Digital Services Act, or DSA. Hopes were high that hate speech, content that harms minors — as well as fake news and weaponised social media — could be reined ...

Ep.113: Germany, Gramsci, and the Rise of the AfD 20.02.2025 59min

Following the horrors of Nazism, the post-war far right needed to proceed strategically, and patiently, if it was ever to stage a comeback. Some far-right actors in Europe and in particular the French Nouvelle Droite took the Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci as their guide. Gramsci's teachings — culture first, politics later — were eventually absorbed by the US radical right. And in recent weeks US Vice President JD Vance and Trump adviser Elon Musk have brought such tactics back...

Ep.112: Resisting Nazi-era Narratives at the European Parliament 31.01.2025 41min

There are many more politicians and policymakers from the far right on our TVs, in our social media feeds, and in our legislatures. They have a new swagger and an even more conspicuous disdain for their adversaries. "They act like they own the place," observes Raquel García Hermida-van der Valle, a liberal member of the European Parliament for the Dutch D66 party. Two far-right groups, the Patriots and Sovereigntists, still face a so-called cordon sanitaire. But another, the European Conserva...

Ep.111: Trump, The Tech Coup, and the EU 30.11.2024 1h 11min

Big Tech bosses. Their immensely profitable corporations. And the fabulously wealthy venture capitalists who fund them. They are gaining power over the destinies of nations. Yet they also contribute to injustice and inequality, even in areas like Silicon Valley that are typically celebrated for generating wealth and innovation. The Valley's crumbling infrastructure and its stark disparities form part of The Tech Coup, a new book by Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament ...