Brussels Playbook Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 79: Gayle Smith — New Year's resolutions & predictions Jan 03, 2019

Show notes

Gayle Smith, a former journalist and now campaigner against extreme poverty, is our main guest. In our podcast panel, Alva Finn and Lina Aburous discuss the U.K. policy of making victims of forced marriages pay for their own flights home if they are rescued by the British government. And we make our political predictions for 2019.

Smith, CEO and president of the ONE campaigning group, tells host Ryan Heath that after 20 years highlighting the effects of genocide and war, she couldn’t resist the chance to prevent one. So began stints in the Clinton and Obama administrations, before her role at ONE, which brought her to Brussels to argue for EU investments that would keep 33 million children in school during the bloc's 2021-2027 budget period.

How does Smith harness the mega-celebrity of ONE founder, Irish rocker Bono? “He brings his fame into the world and people may be excited to meet Bono the rock star, but by the time he leaves the room they feel like, well, that’s Bono the smart activist.”

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Episode 78: Carles Puigdemont — Ai Weiwei — Tajani awards Dec 20, 2018

Show notes

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei are our main guests, interviewed live on stage by POLITICO's Ryan Heath.
Also, panelists Alva Finn and Lina Aburous join Ryan to look back on 2018 and bestow EU Confidential's prestigious Tajani awards on those who have made an outstanding contribution to the political year.
EU Confidential takes a brief festive break next week but we'll be back in the New Year.
Best seasonal wishes to all our listeners — thanks for all your support and feedback in 2018!

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Episode 77: EU presidential contender Frans Timmermans — Tibor Navracsics Dec 13, 2018

Show notes

Double-header this week: socialist candidate for European Commission president Frans Timmermans and the European Commissioner for sport, education and culture, Tibor Navracsics. The panel debates Britain's mid-life crisis a.k.a Brexit

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Episode 76, presented by Ericsson: Carlos Moedas - Macron's climb down - Denmark's immigration plan Dec 06, 2018

Show notes

We talk to Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for innovation, research and science, about his passion for zero-emission cities, artificial intelligence and blockchain. The panel debates the Yellow Jackets eco-tax protest movement in France, and Denmark’s plan to send migrant criminals to an isolated island.

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Episode 75, presented by Google: Debating Diversity — Hillary's migrant misfire Nov 29, 2018

Show notes

We return to the theme of diversity in Brussels, a year after POLITICO’s Brussels So White article series, which looked at racial diversity and related themes in the EU’s de facto capital.

The interview guests are two high-ranking lobbyists and public relations strategists, Lisa Ross and Gurpreet Brar from Edelman, who speak about their personal experiences of Brussels as people of color.

Ross told us that “it is really important to not flip the dominance. I sent off a team to do a multimillion-dollar pitch. They were all women. And as we were preparing, I worried 'oh my God, we've got an all-female team' because isn't that the same as having an all-male team? Isn't that the same as having an all-white team?”

Brar said: “My identity is extremely complex. I grew up in a household of Indian parents, ate Indian food. I listened to Bollywood music. I watch Ru Paul’s drag race and I was a gay man that was trying to deal with my sexuality growing up in a very, very impoverished area of Birmingham (U.K.). So my identity is not one single layer. It's like almost like an onion”

He added: “I am British, but I am also European. I'm really not going anywhere. We're still going to have to live in this environment together, so how do we then make sure that we are living positively?”

In the panel we discuss how Hillary Clinton’s entry into Europe’s migration debate backfired and the emergence of a conservative wing in European civil society.

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Episode 74 presented by Tetra Pak: The Green episode, with Ska Keller, Bas Eickhout, Petra De Sutter Nov 22, 2018

Show notes

Greens are riding high as they gather in Berlin this weekend for their co-candidates for European Commission president in 2019. A string of national and regional electoral successes in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg are the reason for the positive mood. But the Greens are also only a tiny force in much of the EU.

This episode features Ska Keller, Bas Eickhout and Petra Sutter: the three candidates competing for the Green nomination. They pitch to you why it’s time to go green, what they’re doing to change the status quo in Europe, and what they’ll do if, as seems likely, they poll in the single digits across Europe and miss out on the top job.

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Episode 73, presented by Future Europe Podcast: Rose Gottemoeller — Brexit deal — Merkel's vision Nov 15, 2018

Show notes

Rose Gottemoeller, NATO's deputy-secretary general, is our main guest this week. She's the highest-ranking female official in the history of the military alliance — or, as Gottemoeller herself puts it, "the first deputy secretary-general of NATO who happens to be a woman.”

Gottemoeller talks about Russia’s turn from the west, and how attitudes to women have changed in the national security world since she began her career in the 1970s — and what needs to happen to change them further.

Our Brussels Brains Trust of Lina Aburous and Alva Finn debate the big stories of the week — Theresa May's fight for political survival after sealing a Brexit deal, and Angela Merkel's speech to the European Parliament outlining her vision for the EU.

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Episode 72, presented by EFPIA: Bill Browder & Russia — US midterms — Picking politicians Nov 08, 2018

Show notes

Our main guest is Bill Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia but now a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin. He’s the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act — legislation designed to impose severe financial and travel sanctions on human rights abusers. Browder tells our chief Brussels correspondent, David Herszenhorn, the story behind the act and how he’s trying to bring it into the EU.

Also this week, the European People’s Party chose Manfred Weber as its lead candidate for the European Parliament election. But how much of a contest was it? Weber looked to have it wrapped up from the start. Our Brussels Brains Trust debates the best way to pick political candidates.

We also chew over what the U.S. midterms mean for Europe — and how worried Europe should be about Russian interference in elections.

With Ryan Heath getting married (again — same husband, different continent!), news editor Andrew Gray fills in as host.

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Episode 71, presented by Google: Malin Björk & Merkel's legacy Nov 01, 2018

Show notes

With Europe's eyes glued to Berlin this week as the effects of Angela Merkel's partial retirement are digested, this podcast episode looks at what happens now that she has more time to devote to EU-level challenges and reforms, but less political capital to spend on them. And what of Europe's increasingly fragmenting political center? A different European party runs each of the five biggest EU countries. The biggest party, the EPP, runs only one of the 12 biggest countries — Germany.

Our interview guest this week is the left-wing Swedish MEP Malin Björk, one of the key players in Brussels on the EU’s controversial and sometimes unenforced refugee policies. She made the issue her priority because “it's a matter of life and death ... what kind of continent are we going to be?”

In general, Björk doesn’t like the direction the EU is headed in, and she isn’t afraid to say so. She supports a 50-50 Parliament in terms of gender and in 2014 encouraged others on board a plane to refuse to buckle their seatbelts after she realized a fellow passenger was set to be deported to Iran.

Our podcast panel picks the words they think sum up Merkel's legacy and savors this photo of European political grandees: https://twitter.com/ManfredWeber/status/1055842523736915968. Can you spot the poodle?

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Episode 70, presented by Thai Union: Special Oceans-themed episode with Karmenu Vella, Werner Hoyer Oct 25, 2018

Show notes

First up Justine Maillot from the Surfrider Foundation, a group of activists pushing for healthy oceans from the bottom-up. Then we speak to Davide Magnana who is trying to build an industry based on wave and tidal power, and Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank: the man Europe turns to when it doesn't have enough money to solve a pressing problem. Finally, European commissioner Karmenu Vella speaks of oceans as “a goldmine we instead treat like a landfill.” Our podcast panel this week discusses the cultural reasons why our public debates seem to be careening out of control.

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