Brussels Playbook Podcast

Mette Grolleman runs the biggest lobbying office in Brussels — FleishmanHillard — and isn’t tempted to return to the Berlaymont to work for her old boss Margrethe Vestager: “When you leave, you have to leave,” she told EU Confidential. Grolleman’s new goal is to bring nuance to how outsiders understand the EU. The different sides of the Brussels bubble need each other to deliver a functioning whole, she said: “We are an ecosystem ... I valued [lobbyist input] when I was on the inside.” FleishmanHillard has good reason to explain its values to the world in 2019: it has been mired in a controversy over its campaign aimed at winning the reapproval of glyphosate, on behalf of Monsanto, now owned by Bayer. Grolleman demurred when asked whether the company got its tactics right: “I can't speak so much to a specific case a because all clients need and deserve respect and privacy around what we do with them. But what I can say in more general terms is that when you are exposed to criticism … you need to take a step back and look at yourself and ask yourself whether you have acted ethically,” she said. Grolleman predicts that the new, fractured European Parliament will be good for the lobbying business. “It's much more difficult for companies to go in and advocate their case now” because standing coalitions won’t work, and more Euroskeptics are expected to stop “wasting” their votes and get involved in legislating. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our latest podcast episode, we discuss the life of a lobbyist, the latest in the Brussels hustle, and the recent transatlantic twitterstorm. This week’s feature interview is with Paul Adamson, the godfather of Brussels lobbying. He talks to Ryan about his 40-year career in the EU capital, how Boris Johnson hasn’t changed since his own whippersnapper days on the continent, and why lobbyists get a bad name. We spoke before U.K. ambassador Kim Darroch offered his resignation Wednesday. The regular podcast panel looks into top-job nominee Ursula von der Leyen’s vote-gathering efforts, and debates the fate of the UK’s now ex-ambassador in Washington DC, Kim Darroch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A surprise European Commission presidential nominee landed on Brussels this week: the polished and much-criticised defense minister of Germany, Ursula von der Leyen. The job is now hers to lose, and she might indeed lose it. German greens and socialists are furious about how the deal went down. Our main interview is with Mark MacGann: he’s a 25-year veteran of the EU’s tech and telecoms scene who runs Moonshot Ventures. We talk EU reform and how ended up needing 24/7 bodyguards during his time at Uber Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the latest in our occasional series focusing on green issues, we ask whether capitalism can save the planet. The European Commission held a sustainable finance conference this week, and two of our reporters went along to get beyond the hype. Tune in to hear them interview some of the conference participants, including the Commission's financial markets chief. On the podcast panel, we talk about the proponents and detractors of the 2050 climate-neutrality target discussed at last week’s EU summit. And away from the green theme, our panelists pick apart the rights and wrongs of the media coverage of Boris Johnson’s row with his partner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Miliband speaks to POLITICO’s Brexit editor James Randerson in our feature interview this week. It’s delicious timing, given the U.K. is getting a new prime minister and the EU is getting a new slate of leaders. Had history taken just a slightly different path, Miliband could have been a big player in those events. He talks about Boris Johnson, why he thinks U.K. Labour’s Brexit policy is a disaster, the time he met the Belgian who saved his grandmother and aunt from Nazi concentration camps, and his views on how we can help the 70 million people on the run from conflict or persecution. On the podcast panel, we talk about the strong and weak points of recent efforts by European and American politicians to rebrand themselves and their parties, and then move to the easy-listening topic of Middle East peace and development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hear European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in conversation with POLITICO's Florian Eder, discussing Trump, Brexit and more.Also this week, Shada Islam from think tank Friends of Europe talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath about educating EU newbies on Asia and how to counter Islamophobia.In the podcast panel, POLITICO's EU editor Andrew Gray is joined by Lina Aburous, Alva Finn and Carmen Paun to discuss the battle for top EU jobs, Moldova's double-government trouble and how to respond if the U.S. president's son-in-law wants to drop by for a chat. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a week full of world-shaping history, from the 75th D-Day anniversary to the 30th anniversary of the Tianamen Square massacre, our feature interview is with former U.K. Cabinet minister Danny Alexander. He flew in from Beijing to discuss his new work as vice president at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. They're bringing the annual meeting to Luxembourg next month. The podcast panel is Alva Finn and Ryan Heath flying solo on the Trump visit, a center-left win in Denmark's election, and whether or not the European Parliament is a "kangaroo court" as Nigel Farage claims. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A look back at the European Parliament election results, and a look ahead to the race for EU top jobs. Ryan Heath interviews Martin Selmayr, the powerful and controversial secretary-general of the European Commission, at a special POLITICO event the day after the election. Selmayr gives his insights on what it will take to install a new Commission, and what and who will shape its policy agenda. The podcast panel of Alva Finn and Lina Aburous debate the meaning of the partial liberal, green and Euroskeptic waves that took away the decades-long parliamentary majority enjoyed by the European People’s Party and Party of European Socialists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emily Thornberry, the U.K. Labour Party’s shadow foreign secretary, is our guest in this special edition of EU Confidential. The show was recorded on Sunday in London in front of an audience at Podcast Live, an event that brought together political podcasts from around the U.K. and beyond. In conversation with POLITICO’s Ryan Heath, Jack Blanchard and Annabelle Dickson, Thornberry calls for her party to support a new referendum on any Brexit deal agreed between Labour and the U.K. government. She explains why she thinks Britain should hold an inquiry into how Brexit was handled. She also speaks of her disgust at the latest anti-Semitism allegations to hit her party. And she tackles everything from Saudi Arabia to China on the foreign policy front. Find out whether she would ever own a Huawei phone and what she thinks is her biggest political mistake. The show closes with a panel discussion featuring regular EU Confidential panelist Lina Aburous and POLITICO’s EU editor, Andrew Gray. We haven’t had time to tidy up the audio as much as we usually do for our regular episodes but we wanted to get this one out to our listeners ASAP given how fast-moving the Brexit story is right now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are we headed for climate disaster, and is the EU the solution? That's the question we ask in the second episode of "EU Confidential Goes Green,” the occasional series in which we zoom in on climate and sustainability challenges. Six Members of the European Parliament from across the political spectrum and around the Continent debated the question, and others, at the recent POLITICO European Elections Great Debate. Ryan Heath hosted the debate, which took place on April 2 in Brussels, between Mark Demesmaeker, Fredrick Federley, Jo Leinen, Marisa Matias, Adina Vălean and Thomas Waitz. This episode features highlights from their discussion. This weekend EU Confidential goes to London, where you can see and hear the team in action: we’re live on-stage this Sunday, April 7 from 2:30 to 3:30 pm at the Podcast Live festival. Our special guest will be Emily Thornberry, the U.K. Labour Party's Shadow Foreign Secretary. You can buy tickets to our show for £12, or an all-day ticket for £30 to see up to a dozen of your favorite political podcasts. Just go to http://podcastlive.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first of six special EU Confidential Goes Green episodes between March and September 2019.This episode is all about cities and features interviews with Amanda Eichel, executive director of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy and Anna König Jerlmyr, the mayor of Stockholm & president of EUROCITIES. The Swedish capital is growing fast but shrinking its emissions — by 58 percent since 1990 — at the same time.The podcast panel dives into the Yellow Jackets, talk of a Green Wave in European politics, and asks why Manfred Weber, the center-right candidate to be the next European Commission president, is missing from the climate debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Irish MEP Mairead McGuinness, vice president of the European Parliament from Ireland’s ruling Fine Gael party, talks Brexit, the Irish border and about her interest in throwing her hat in the ring to be president of the next European Parliament, if reelected in May. But back home in Ireland, just one in five elected representatives are women. There’s never been a woman prime minister, neither of the two biggest parties have ever been led by a woman, and while there have been women ministers, they haven’t occupied the big-ticket ministries of finance, foreign affairs and defense. Are things about to be shaken up in May’s elections, at the local and the European level? Following the political activism surrounding the repeal of Ireland’s constitutional abortion ban, POLITICO correspondent Naomi O’Leary talks to some of the women shaking up the Irish political landscape. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a summit special this week. POLITICO’s Andrew Gray, Rym Momtaz and Florian Eder discussed the topic du jour, Brexit, as EU leaders gathered in Brussels. They also chewed over Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party being suspended from the European People’s Party and the Continent's liberals entering the EU election fray. Keeping in mind that some things are bigger than politics, it’s a week of reflection in Brussels, three years on from the March 22 terrorist attacks on the city’s Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro station. We try to gain some perspective with Flemish Culture Minister Sven Gatz, whose new book “Molenbeek/Maalbeek: A Brussels Tale” delves into the stories of seven fictional individuals on March 22, 2016. The book is as much about this "lowest point in decades" as it is about Brussels, the city, which is full of people “living side-by-side but not together,” in the words of Gatz. We also check in again with polling guru Cornelius Hirsch of pollofpolls.eu about the challenges of accurate polling for the European election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick Pickles, Twitter’s senior policy strategist, is our main guest. He responds to heated criticism of Twitter’s handling of free expression, misogyny, disinformation and transparency.“Increasingly, problems have tech components, but often societal problems can’t be solved by technology alone,” he says.We also check in with polling guru Cornelius Hirsch, hashing out the details of what could happen if the U.K. votes in the European election.Our podcast panel discusses this week’s Syria conference in Brussels — and debates the tepid response from Germany’s Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance vision.And following up on a recent promise, we crunched the numbers to determine the balance between men and women featured on the podcast. Over the last year, 68 men were featured guests, compared to 44 women.Although it's not an exact science, we also had a shot at measuring total air time. Factoring in our podcast panelists Lina Aburous and Alva Finn, women accounted for 60 percent of speaking time. But when we added in an estimate for host Ryan Heath, total speaking time for women fell to 45.3 percent.It’s not perfect, but we reckon we're on the right track. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the first episode of our new mini-series on women, power and the EU election — a fortnightly spin-off podcast from POLITICO's EU Confidential.Our timing for episode one could hardly be better. EU leaders like Manfred Weber, Frans Timmermans and Margrethe Vestager are clamoring to demand gender parity in EU institutions.In this episode, POLITICO's Lili Bayer speaks with Belgian MEP Maria Arena about the current status of women in politics. At the rate we're going, it would take 107 years to overcome the gap in women’s political representation worldwide. And the situation in Europe isn't much better.We also hear a debate between some of Europe's youngest aspiring female election candidates, including Svenja Hahn, liberal MEP candidate from Germany, Tuulia Pitkänen, socialist MEP candidate from Finland, and Ana Lidia Pereira, who was selected as an MEP candidate this week for her center-right party in Portugal.Look out for our next next episode in a couple of weeks, when we'll feature women who are shaking up Irish politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s podcast features Amal Al Qubaisi, president of the United Arab Emirates' Federal National Council, making her perhaps the most senior female politician in the Arab world. We cover a lot of territory including the blockade against Qatar and why the UAE proclaimed 2019 to be the Year of Tolerance. We're also taking the opportunity of International Women's Day to launch a special new EU Confidential podcast mini-series called The XX Factor, on women, power and European election. Listen to the teaser here: https://soundcloud.com/ryanheatheu/the-xxfactor-teaser-a-special-eu-confidential-series In other election-related news, Cornelius Hirsch is joining us as a regular guest on the podcast. He's the co-founder of pollofpolls.eu, Europe's answer to FiveThirtyEight. POLITICO bought pollofpolls.eu last week, and we'll be integrating their charts and insights in the coming weeks. The podcast panel of Lina Aburous and Alva Finn discusses diversity on-stage, tackling the question of who gets to speak on panels. We'll also debate whether the European Parliament should be conducting polling about its own future members, when no other Parliament we can find does this sort of political research. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a week of geopolitical ping-pong we take a break to dive deeper into the politics of well-being and what it takes to be a great political communicator, with the 38-year-old prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who joined Ryan Heath in front of a live audience at the POLITICO office in Brussels. In the podcast panel we discuss the dangers of dialogue with dictators, and what a public body should do when one of its staff stands trial for raping a junior colleague. Next week you can look forward to the first instalment of new regular feature: Ryan will be discussing European opinion polls with Cornelius Hirsch, the founder of pollofpolls.eu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s podcast focuses on the Munich Security Conference, one of the big events on the global political calendar. It features two interviews from POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent Matt Karnitschnig, who sat down with Rick Grenell, the outspoken U.S. ambassador to Berlin, and Slovakia’s veteran Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák. Grenell and Lajčák provided their divergent impressions of the conference and transatlantic relations. They also addressed the palpably divisive issues of the Iran nuclear deal and the general tone emanating from Washington, among other topics. We also spoke with POLITICO’s chief Brussels correspondent David Herszenhorn, one of our reporters who covered the event, to get an insider’s impression of this year’s “tense” conference. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath in this extra edition of our podcast.Hunt once took heavy fire from Brussels for making a comparison that invoked the EU and the Soviet Union. But he's been much more diplomatic lately in his dealings with the EU.In this exclusive interview in our Brussels office, he talks extensively about Brexit. “It’s massively in everyone’s interest to get back to stability,” Hunt says, adding that he hopes negotiations between London and Brussels will yield a revised deal “in the next few days.”A quick resolution is necessary, Hunt says, “for the sake of sanity of the population of Britain and indeed of Europe.”In addition to Brexit, Hunt discusses Huawei, Facebook, the Iran nuclear deal and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's feature interview is a 15-minute highlight reel from John McDonnell's already famous interview with POLITICO's London Playbook editor Jack Blanchard. In addition to discussing Brexit next steps and Labour's anti-Semitism challenges, the U.K. shadow chancellor landed himself in hot water by describing Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill as a "villain" for sending in the army to tackle a miners' strike in 1910. The question now: Did McDonnell successfully tackle a taboo, or simply prove that the current Labour opposition is unelectable? The podcast panel of Alva Finn, and POLITICO's new Paris correspondent Rym Momtaz, advise an anonymous MEP who wrote to POLITICO to say that the pressure of living and working in three cities (their home city, Brussels and Strasbourg) is tearing families apart. To continue the family theme, we also discuss Viktor Orbán's new policy in Hungary: exempting the mothers of four or more children from income tax. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we bring you the revenge of the geeks! Bellingcat is the world's most surprising and one of its most successful journalism ventures. Founder Eliot Higgins and senior investigator Christiaan Triebert explain what open source investigation is, and how they used it to get to the bottom of modern mysteries, including tracking down the Skripal poisoning suspect and identifying the people and weapons that took down the MH17 flight over Ukraine. We're joined by Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake who brought a new documentary — "Bellingcat: Truth in a post-truth world" — to Parliament this week. Listen to the end to find out how an 11 year-old's school project inspired Bellingcat's latest efforts ... in illegal wildlife trafficking. We also bring you snippets of U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland who visited POLITICO's office this morning after Donald Trump's State of the Union speech with messages about trade relations, China and EU bureaucracy. The podcast panel discusses a right-wing politician's conversion to Islam, the embarrassing splintering of the Yellow Jackets movement in France, and what special places in Brexit hell might look like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Facebook's new global head of public affairs gives his first public interview since starting the job to Ryan Heath. Clegg addresses a growing number of Facebook controversies and outlines the company's plan to win back trust and contribute to democracy. The podcast panel debates Facebook's efforts, the latest developments in the Macedonia name dispute, and Margot Wallström's admission that she can't forgive the British government for Brexit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

POLITICO's Ryan Heath brings you two podcasts in one from the World Economic Forum — our final daily Davos Confidential show also doubles as your regular weekly EU Confidential. (Check out the other Davos Confidential shows wherever you found this podcast.)Ryan talks to Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra about Brexit, what worries him about the EU and why people should vote in May's European Parliament election.Ryan also speaks to Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, an organization working to accelerate LGBTQ acceptance, including at the WEF.Back in Brussels, POLITICO's EU editor Andrew Gray reviews the week's news with panelists Lina Aburous, Alva Finn and Carmen Paun. They discuss POLITICO's report that veteran MEP Elmark Brok netted surpluses from charges to constituents who visited him at the European Parliament; Donald Tusk raining on Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel's parade as they signed the Treaty of Aachen; Brexiteer James Dyson's decision to move his company HQ to Singapore; and the prospect of Brexiting Britain taking part in May's European Parliament election. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kumi Naidoo, secretary-general of Amnesty International, talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath in our latest pop-up podcast from the World Economic Forum.Ryan also sums up his impressions of the WEF so far and talks to World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Wellcome Trust boss Jeremy Farrar about global efforts to improve mental health. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former Danish prime minister and current head of Save the Children International, is our main guest in today’s pop-up podcast from the World Economic Forum.Speaking before an audience at a live taping of the podcast in Davos, Thorning-Schmidt talks to POLITICO's Ryan Heath about everything from children’s rights to Brexit to her own future.Also today, Ryan chats to Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, about abuse of the internet and what the tech community can do about it.To get more from the POLITICO team at the WEF, sign up for the daily Davos Playbook, the essential mid-morning briefing: www.politico.eu/davos-playbook-registration/And keep up with the news in Davos as it happens on POLITICO’s live blog:https://www.politico.eu/article/davos-world-economic-forum-live-blog/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

POLITICO’s Ryan Heath is back with another series of daily podcasts from the World Economic Forum. In our first episode of the 2019 edition, Ryan asks Huffpost international director Louise Roug if all the chatter about tackling inequality will amount to anything more than Davos-speak. Ex-Formula One driver Nico Rosberg tells us about the mobility revolution that drove him to Davos. And Ryan asks FTI Consulting’s data guru Dan Healy if big companies across the G20 are really ready to face 21st century challenges such as climate change and cyber crime. To get more from the POLITICO team at the WEF, sign up for the daily Davos Playbook, the essential mid-morning briefing: https://www.politico.eu/davos-playbook-registration/ And keep up with the news in Davos as it happens on POLITICO’s live blog from 8AM CET Tuesday 22nd January: https://www.politico.eu/article/davos-world-economic-forum-live-blog/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the winds of right-wing populism sweep through the world's biggest democracies, from India to the United States, and Brazil to the European Union, and the United Kingdom continues to tear itself apart, we take a step back in this week's podcast to consider Churchill and Europe. Our feature interview is with the young Dutch historian Felix Klos, who was born the year the European Union was created, 1992 . As the author of Churchill on Europe, and a prospective member of the European Parliament, Klos is not your average 26-year-old. Klos speaks of Churchill as the ugly duckling of the EU's founding family, but its most crucial member. "If there's anything that we can pinpoint to Churchill's legacy it's this: it's being able to analyze the problem then coming up with a solution that works and then having the courage to tell the people that you represent something they don't like to hear." The podcast panel debate 2019 European election data points showing how divided Europe is. You can see them on page 20 of the e-version of this week's POLITICO print edition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Netflix plans 153 original shows in Europe in 2019, worrying local broadcasters and delighting consumers. That level of ambition also leaves the company burning through billions in cash. The week's featured guest is David Hyman, general counsel at Netflix.The podcast panel of Lina Aburous and Alva Finn discusses the European Commission's efforts to brand 2019 as being about delivery, destiny and democracy, and we remember the highs and lows of the "father of the house" of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, dumped this week by his party after 38 years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Gates — billionaire tech founder turned philanthropist — is the main guest on this week's podcasts. We focus on why Europe is an aid superpower, what support Africa needs to cope with its exploding population, and why there's reason to believe the world is getting better. The podcast panel compares the world views of Gates and the nationalists winning support across Europe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a wide-ranging interview Weber says Brussels is a "black box" that is disconnected from most Europeans (though he leads its biggest party in the European Parliament). His campaign pitch puts a premium on changing how the job of European Commission president is done: “When there are fires in Sweden or in Portugal and people dying in Greece, I think a commission president must be there to show up, to be present with the concerns of the people," Weber said. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices