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...

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...

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...

Donald Trump wanted to buy it; Mette Frederiksen said it wasn't for sale. Greenland and its ownership is for Greenlanders to decide, the Danish prime minister told President Trump five years ago. In this episode Karin Axelsson, EU correspondent for the respected Danish daily Politiken, reflects on why the world's biggest island, which gained autonomy from Denmark 45 years ago and then withdrew from the European Union, is back in the headlines. Reasons include the visit by European Commission...

Frontex, the EU border and coast guard, is the bloc's best funded agency costing upwards of a billion euros a year. There are plans for a standing corps of 10,000 uniformed personnel this decade. But something is badly amiss. Migrants keep drowning in large numbers under Frontex's watch. That includes what is thought to be the worst disaster of its kind when the fishing vessel Adriana capsized in June last year in Greek waters with some 750 people aboard. An estimated 600 people perished in...

The world is growing more violent. Worst affected countries include Myanmar, Syria and Mexico as well as those experiencing more obvious crises like Gaza and Ukraine. That's according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project or ACLED. But there's also growing concern about more developed countries with longer established democratic traditions like the United States. In this episode ACLED chief of external affairs Hugh Pope talks about how data can give a uniquely accurate and...

Markus Becker of Der Spiegel describes a developing situation in Germany where the popularity of the far-right AfD party has surged over the past year. Revelations that members of the AfD discussed deportations of non-assimilated people and of those with non-German backgrounds has prompted a huge backlash including mass demonstrations. The AfD has created further headaches for itself by calling for a so-called Dexit, or an exit from the European Union. Markus says that's likely to turn off...

Terry Reintke unhesitatingly describes some EU lawmakers with anti-European and far-right views as fascists. Her directness stands in sharp contrast to bland circumlocutions more common to Brussels. Now Terry, a German who co-heads the Greens in the European Parliament, wants the chamber to launch an inquiry into whether its extreme right Identity and Democracy Group, or ID Group, adheres to European values. That inquiry, she says, should run in parallel to efforts in Germany to determine...

The prospect of a wider conflict with Russia under a scenario where Donald Trump is back in the White House has spooked Europe. Thierry Breton, a European commissioner, is among those sounding the alarm. This month Breton made headlines by recalling how Trump said NATO was dead and the United States would never come to Europe's rescue. The journalist talking to Breton when he made those remarks is Teri Schultz. Teri has focused on European security for three decades, and her reports for...

Mario Draghi is the obvious candidate to be the next president of the European Council. The job involves leading the meetings of EU heads of state and government. And it's wide open since incumbent Charles Michel announced he's quitting. But despite Draghi's notable achievements, including saving the euro and crafting game-changing policies on vaccines and sanctions, "Super Mario" seems unlikely to make the final cut. That's down to the reluctance of EU national leaders to be overshadowed by...

Jacques Delors passed away this week. He was the longest serving president of the European Commission. But what made Delors such a towering figure was his headlong rush to unify the continent. Monetary union. Free movement. The Single Market. Delors is the preeminent architect of the modern European project. Fast forward three decades and that architecture acutely concerns admirers of Delors. Among them is the well-known liberal lawmaker Sophie in ‘t Veld. Sophie has a lot to say about how...

Big Meat had a good year in Europe. Plans to set emission limits for large-scale cattle farms were scrapped. Rules requiring landowners to restore wetlands were mostly gutted. And a keenly anticipated reform of the animal welfare rules was mostly consigned to the deep freeze. Among those promised animal welfare reforms: legislation to End the Cage Age. The idea was that hens, pigs, calves, rabbits, and quail would no longer be reared in conditions that inflict suffering and that underpin...

EU industrial policy for silicon chips to space technologies to electric vehicles too often seems to rely on Europeans prevailing in a global race to mine. The phrase "drill, baby, drill" applies as much to metals and minerals as oil and gas these days. But the EU's industry hawks are in denial. This is a race Europe can't ever win. The EU has relatively few metals and minerals of its own and little capacity to process the vast quantities it will require. To make matters worse, the short-term...

The problem of X as a source of hate and a threat to democracy is back at the top of the policy agenda. Elon Musk's social media platform circulated a large amount of false information as well as images of extreme violence during the recent terror attack in Israel. A European Commissioner, Thierry Breton, said that content probably was illegal in Europe and threatened X with fines. That standoff is likely to drag on for a while. But there's another European on Musk's case. His name is Imran...

We need to talk about a Far Right EU. Nativists and ultraconservatives are being actively courted by the European mainstream including at the level of the EU. There's the advent of prime minister Giorgia Meloni, with her party's roots in Italian fascism, and then there's the popularity in France of Marine Le Pen, previously seen as too extreme. But would a Le Pen presidency really mark a fundamental change for the EU? Or even an existential threat, as commentators have long warned? The...

Europeans are comfortable talking about whiteness in the American context. But when it comes to their own continent, not so much. That serves to shut down an important conversation about police brutality, decolonisation and migration. The resistance to discussing whiteness is starkly apparent at the level of the EU and it's another sign the European project is heading in a troubling direction. That's the assessment of Hans Kundnani, the author of a ground-breaking new book titled...

News from Spain where a far-right political party called Vox lost seats in the recent general election. Vox are culture warriors in the mould of the US MAGA movement: anti-migrant, anti-LGBT+, anti-Islam, anti-feminist and with a predilection for blocking action on EU climate goals. The response in Brussels to Vox's poor showing was triumphalism. But the uncomfortable truth is that Vox could well have been headed into power as the preferred coalition partner for Alberto Feijóo, the leader of...

Polish state media still is treated as a legitimate public service by European authorities. Yet many Poles refer to it as a factory of hate. They say Polish state TV and radio first and foremost serve to advance the agenda of the ruling Law and Justice party in Warsaw. And while Silvio Berlusconi of Italy was a pioneer in bullying media, and Viktor Orbán of Hungary took state control to new extremes, the Polish hard right has been quick to catch up. Since Law and Justice came to power eight...

Philippe Lamberts is advancing one of the most progressive agendas ever to reach the upper echelons of the EU power structure. This month the co-head of the Greens at the European Parliament will convene a conference that seeks to change, well, just about everything. The conference is called Beyond Growth — an umbrella term for thinking about how growth in a materially finite world is reaching its limits. All 1,500 seats have been snapped up and thousands of people are expected to watch via...

Conveniently at the heart of the EU Qatargate corruption scandal is a rogue NGO. Conveniently, that is, for EU officials and lawmakers who dislike non-governmental organisations. NGOs frequently end up in an awkward relationship with states and international organisations, says Thomas Davies at City University, and that awkwardness increasingly seems to include the EU too. The trigger for the current tensions is an NGO ("Fight Impunity") that allegedly worked with Morocco and Qatar to channel...

Families can go wrong. And unless you've been under a rock these last weeks, you'll know that a number of members of the Socialist family at the European Parliament went very wrong. They allegedly took sack loads of Qatari cash on top of their already generous salaries and benefits in return, it seems, for trying to block their own Socialist colleagues from criticising Qatar's record on human rights. In this episode, Lara Wolters, a Socialist member, gives a first-hand account of being...

Putin's barbarism is somehow felt by us all even though it can be hard to get to grips with the magnitude of what's at stake. One reason may be what writer and academic Tom Nichols calls normalcy bias, an inherent resistance to accepting that large changes can upend our lives. Another may be what Lithuanian arts curator Raimundas Malasauskas calls unlearned lessons from history about Russia's imperialist and colonialist drives. Political scientist David Rowe is a Fulbright NATO Security...

The European Parliament is reeling from corruption allegations involving the Gulf state of Qatar. Members' offices have been sealed. Raids have been carried out by Italian and Belgian authorities. And large sums of cash seized including sacks of banknotes from the father of one of the lawmakers at the centre of the scandal. That lawmaker, Eva Kaili, was with the Greek socialist Pasok party. She was a vice president of the European Parliament — and she'd been strongly promoting Qatar. Kaili...

The European Union wants India as a strategic ally. And India loves the positive attention it's getting from Europe. Both sides are trying to speed up a long stalled-trade agreement amid steadily tightening relations. But that only serves to magnify a glaring double standard in EU foreign policy. While the EU openly criticises China for abusing its the mostly Muslim Uyghur population, the EU turns a blind eye to the way India treats its own Muslim minority. The problems run deeper still....