Brussels Playbook Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 101: Bruno Le Maire and EU election preview May 23, 2019

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Bruno Le Maire, French minister of economy and finance, outlines his big ambitions for collecting tax from giant companies, creating a eurozone budget and ensuring European sovereignty on key new technologies. Does it, or will it, amount to a "new capitalism"? You be the judge.
In the podcast panel Lina Aburous is joined by POLITICO's polling expert Cornelius Hirsch, to discuss everything from the Austrian Ibizagate scandal to how right or wrong the EU election polls may be.

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XX Factor Episode 5 — UK: Annunziata Rees-Mogg, and MPs Mary Creagh, Jo Swinson, and Helen Whately May 19, 2019

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After three years of divisive Brexit debate and voting in the United Kingdom, POLITICO's Annabelle Dickson surveyed the damage and opportunities that have arisen as British voters unexpectedly head to vote in the 2019 European Parliament election. How have Britain's political relationships changed? Why are female politicians a particular target of abuse? What other type of politics is possible? Annabelle interviewed Annunziata Rees-Mogg (Brexit Party MEP candidate), and MPs Mary Creagh (Labour), Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat), and Helen Whately (Conservative).

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**Episode 100** presented by Bayer: Air pollution, killing us softly? May 16, 2019

Show notes

For EU Green Week and EU Public Health Week, we go to an issue at the intersection of those themes: air quality.

The World Health Organisation attributes up to seven million deaths annually to air pollution. The topic is getting political too, thanks to scandals like Dieselgate and a growing number of devices and apps that tell people exactly how exposed they are to the dangers.

The EU is at the heart of these discussions: a would-be enforcer that doesn't do much enforcement, and which oversees contradictory monitoring systems. Here’s another thing to consider: unlike other deadly things you can breathe, like cigarette smoke, it’s a lot harder for individuals to control their exposure to air pollution.

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Episode 99: Frans Timmermans and Margrethe Vestager, rivals for European Commission president May 09, 2019

Show notes

We have a double-header this week: interviews with both Frans Timmermans (Socialist) and Margrethe Vestager (Liberal), two rivals to become European Commission president.

Ryan Heath and Nazan Gökdemir jointly interviewed the candidates as part of a television series for ARTE, the franco-german television network.

In the podcast panel Alva Finn and Lina Aburous debate whether it was right to offer Jean-Claude Juncker a "European of the Year" award at the European Business Summit this week, and a new documentary about the Brexit negotiations, based on two years of insider footage following around the European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt

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XX Factor Episode 4 — What can Europe learn from around the world? May 07, 2019

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Hosted by Sarah Wheaton and featuring Corinna Horst, Lina Aburous, Jacinda Ardern and Lulwah Al Khater, this episode takes us from the Middle East to Mexico, and on to New Zealand, the United States and Rwanda to look at the challenges shared by women in politics, and what Europe can take away from those experiences.

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Episode 98: EU Presidential Debate highlights May 02, 2019

Show notes

In this episode we offer you highlights from Monday's 95-minute EU presidential debate in Maastricht, co-moderated by EU Confidential host Ryan Heath. Five candidates debate on Digital Europe, Sustainable Europe and the Future of Europe.

The podcast panel is back together to critique the debate and the five new far-right ministers who have joined the government of Estonia, even though two liberal parties won a majority of seats in the country's March election.

If you want to here the full 95-minute presidential debate, you can listen to it at: https://soundcloud.com/ryanheatheu/2019-eu-presidential-debate-maastricht-full-length#t=7:49

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Episode 97: Manfred Weber, EPP EU presidential candidate Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

This week it's a short episode: just a 20-minute interview with Manfred Weber, the person in pole position to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president later this year. The interview was conducted by POLITICO's Ryan Heath and Nazan Gökdemir, a journalist from the Franco-German TV station ARTE, part of a series of interviews with six presidential candidates. You can binge-watch all the interviews on politico.eu.

We focus on Weber this week, because next week's podcast will be highlights of the Maastricht EU presidential debate, featuring all the candidates and parties except Oriol Junqueras (who is in in pre-trial detention in Spain) and Weber, who is skipping the debate to attend a celebration of Theo Waigel, his fellow Bavarian politician and a political mentor.

Before the interview Ryan speaks to Andrew Gray, POLITICO's EU editor, about Weber's side of the story.

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XX Factor Episode 3: Women in election media coverage, featuring Marietje Schaake, and Italy Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

Why do female candidates and politicians receive more negative coverage than men, and why are they seen as less newsworthy? In this episode we look at the case study of Italy with POLITICO reporter Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, and speak to one of the most high profile members of the European Parliament Marietje Schaake.

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Episode 96, presented by BP: Decoding election betting, polling and journalism Apr 18, 2019

Show notes

The European Parliament has wrapped up its current five-year term, and the election campaign now enters into a final five-week sprint. This episode features a three-way discussion about what betting companies, opinion pollsters and journalists can tell us about election campaigns and results, featuring Cornelius Hirsch, co-founder of Poll of Polls, now with POLITICO; Eleni Varvitsioti, Brussels correspondent for Greek newspaper Kathimerini and Matthew Shaddick, head of political betting at Ladbrokes.

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Episode 95: For & Against the EU — Sandro Gozi & Anders Vistisen Apr 11, 2019

Show notes

For or against the EU? It's the biggest European question of all — and we tackled it in a debate in front of an audience in Brussels this week as the EU election campaign gets into high gear.

Hear highlights of the debate between Sandro Gozi, Italy's former Europe minister who is standing for Emmanuel Macron's party in the election, and Anders Vistisen, Danish MEP and member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

EU Confidential host Ryan Heath plays referee in this heated contest.
Find out which candidate compared Viktor Orbán to the unobtainable girl in high school and the migration crisis to the weather in Brussels.

And if you haven't had a chance yet, check out our special episode from earlier this week, recorded in front of an audience in London at the Podcast Live event, featuring Emily Thornberry, Labour's shadow foreign secretary.

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