Finally. After months of paralysis, the new leadership team in Brussels is up and running. Then again, the power trio of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas might already be out of date, reflecting centrist majorities that don’t really exist anymore and pushing for support for Ukraine that’s already on the wane in the age of Donald Trump. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO’s own power trio of repo...
Dec 06, 2024•35 min•Ep. 395
Romania’s presidential election delivered a TikTok-fueled political shock, with pro-Russia, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu winning the first round. His unexpected rise has stunned the establishment and raised serious questions about NATO, Ukraine, and Europe’s future. EU Confidential host Sarah Wheaton speaks with former NATO spokesperson and Romanian native Oana Lungescu to unpack what Georgescu’s victory means for European security, and how Trump’s return to the White House could fuel the...
Nov 29, 2024•38 min•Ep. 394
While Donald Trump is filling out his top team, the EU faces a leadership vacuum. Thank Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been on the phone with Vladimir Putin and faces gloomy prospects in likely snap elections. EU Confidential host Sarah Wheaton is joined by Gordon Repinski, POLITICO’s executive editor for Germany and host of the Berlin Playbook podcast, and Liana Fix, Europe fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, to unpack how domestic chaos in Berlin translates to transatlantic ...
Nov 22, 2024•33 min•Ep. 394
Europe’s energy system is entering a period of radical change. The net-zero transition will require a significant overhaul of our infrastructure and our supply chains, right when geopolitical tensions are forcing the continent to find new sources of oil and gas and develop new networks of energy collaboration with allies. In this special podcast episode produced by POLITICO Studio for Equinor, we explore these changes and their impact on energy policy across the continent. Vulnerabilities of Eur...
Nov 20, 2024•18 min
There were 26 hearings and 72 hours of questions, answers and non-answers — and in the end, none of it mattered. Politics clearly trumped policy as MEPs grilled the aspiring new commissioners, with partisanship reaching new heights. EU Confidential host Sarah Wheaton unpacks the Commission confirmation hearings with some of POLITICO’s top policy journalists: Senior Reporter for Iberian Affairs Aitor Hernández-Morales; Senior Defense and Space Reporter Josh Posaner; Playbook co-author Eddy Wax; a...
Nov 15, 2024•34 min•Ep. 393
After Donald Trump’s election victory, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is breaking out the Champagne. Germany’s government, meanwhile, is breaking up. In this week’s episode of EU Confidential, we look at how Trump Round 2 is already reshaping European power dynamics. POLITICO editor-at-large Nicholas Vinocur dials in from Budapest, where Orbán is hosting European leaders for a strategy session on transatlantic relations. Then, host Sarah Wheaton hosts two high-ranking German MEPs, Parliam...
Nov 08, 2024•42 min•Ep. 392
For a fresh view of the U.S. election in its final days — and what it means for Europe — this week’s episode of EU Confidential gets a ground-level take from the campaign trail. POLITICO’s Jakob Hanke Vela, usually based in Brussels, has been dispatched to the U.S. to meet voters and cover the campaign from a European perspective. Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for USA Today, has been hitting the trail with Kamala Harris after covering the Obama, Trump and Biden presidencies. They...
Nov 01, 2024•31 min•Ep. 391
A vote that was supposed to be a slam dunk in favor of the EU turned into a nail-biter: barely 50 percent of Moldovans backed the country’s accession ambitions in last week’s referendum. Does a massive Russian interference campaign of vote-buying and lies explain the result — or is Brussels’ tepid support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression also to blame? Ahead of a vote with similar stakes in the Republic of Georgia, EU Confidential host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO reporters ...
Oct 25, 2024•39 min•Ep. 390
This week’s episode of EU Confidential is a show about nothing. As in: Brussels’ endless lame-duck inertia. Sure, there’s still lots of yadda yadda yadda, but no real action coming out of the EU institutions despite multiple global crises (leaders at this week’s EU summit discussed migration, sure, but left Brussels having taken no concrete decisions on how to tackle it). Host Sarah Wheaton dissects the reasons for the hold-up — and why it matters — with POLITICO’s Barbara Moens and Nick Vinocur...
Oct 18, 2024•38 min•Ep. 390
Buckle up. This week on the EU Confidential podcast, we’re talking cars. And a looming trade war. European Union countries are split over whether it’s a good idea to take on Beijing and use duties to hit the brakes on China’s booming (and heavily subsidized) electric car industry. At the same time, the EU is trying to shift to greener cars. Seems contradictory? It is. Abigaël Vasselier of the Mercator Institute for China Studies joins POLITICO’s Koen Verhelst and Jordyn Dahl to sort it all out, ...
Oct 11, 2024•31 min•Ep. 389
In this week’s episode of EU Confidential, we tackle the complex forces shaping Europe’s future — where political shifts, migration and escalating conflict in neighboring regions are all colliding. As tensions in the Middle East intensify, POLITICO's Opinion Editor Jamie Dettmer reports from Tel Aviv, breaking down the situation on the ground and the prospect of an all-out war in the region. We then shift focus to Austria, where the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) secured a significant election vi...
Oct 04, 2024•40 min•Ep. 388
Volodymyr Zelensky has just four months. That’s the time left until U.S. President Joe Biden leaves office. After that, who knows what’s going to happen. And that means uncomfortable questions for the EU, too. This week’s edition of EU Confidential tracks the Ukrainian president’s recent journey to the U.S. We start off in Kyiv, where POLITICO’s Veronika Melkozerova recounts meeting Zelensky as he gave reporters a sneak peek of his “Victory Plan.” (Security is tight — even lipstick needs a close...
Sep 27, 2024•39 min•Ep. 387
Live from Strasbourg… and Paris… and Berlin… and London, it’s EU Confidential. In this week’s episode, we catch you up on a dizzying week of news. We start with the inside dish on Thierry Breton’s high-drama departure from the European Commission, followed by analysis of who’s really in charge now that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has debuted her new team, with POLITICO’s Marion Solletty and Eddy Wax. Host Sarah Wheaton also sits down with current (and likely future) climate Commiss...
Sep 20, 2024•43 min•Ep. 386
While Brussels has been obsessed recently with the “Draghi report,” that’s NOT the topic of this week’s episode. We will, however, discuss WHY Brussels is so besotted. (Spoiler alert: It's because Europe’s economy is broken.) Host Sarah Wheaton talks to POLITICO’s Carlo Martuscelli and Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING Think, about why the EU is falling so far behind big competitors like the U.S. and China; as well as about the political factors that got us here — and are keeping us s...
Sep 13, 2024•38 min•Ep. 385
It’s been a particularly chaotic rentrée for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In this week’s episode of EU Confidential, we talk about the mad dash to name the new slate of commissioners, while getting the right balance of politics, geography, gender and expertise. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO’s Chief EU Correspondent Barbara Moens and Policy Editor Joanna Roberts to look at the hot button issues on the agenda and consider how European voters’ call for a rightward shift in ...
Sep 06, 2024•35 min•Ep. 384
In this episode of EU Confidential, we speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum. Her latest book, "Autocracy Inc.," explores how authoritarian regimes are banding together against democracies, including EU countries. But first, we look ahead to local elections in three eastern German states, where extreme parties on both the right and the left are poised to make historic gains as migration dominates the headlines. Host Sarah Wheaton and POLITICO’s Berlin news editor, James Angel...
Aug 30, 2024•36 min•Ep. 383
In this episode, host Sarah Wheaton is joined by Alessandro Ford, POLITICO’s agriculture reporter, to unpack how the prospect of lab-grown meat has riled up Europe’s farmers — threatening to upend the EU’s agriculture policy and lucrative subsidy program. Read Alessandro’s full story here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 23, 2024•22 min•Ep. 382
While the podcast takes a little break, we bring this insightful episode back into your feed — unpacking details of who votes for the far right in Europe. We unpack what drives voters to abandon the mainstream and more traditional party loyalties for the far right, and how poverty, or fear of it, motivates typical supporters of the AfD in Germany, Geert Wilders’ PVV in the Netherlands, or Chega in Portugal. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO reporters Hanne Cokelaere, James Angelos and Ait...
Aug 16, 2024•40 min
On our summer break, we're bringing this episode from January back into your feed by popular demand, looking at a crisis that is affecting many Europeans in most EU countries: skyrocketing rents and house prices, a shortage of flats, long waiting lists for social or affordable housing — commonplace problems from Greece to Luxembourg to Portugal. Host Sarah Wheaton talks to POLITICO’s Aitor Hernández-Morales and Sorcha Edwards, secretary general of Housing Europe, about the causes of the crisis, ...
Aug 09, 2024•42 min
Brussels might seem empty, but high-stakes games are afoot behind the scenes. From air-conditioned government suites (and the occasional vacation villa), leaders are working the phones, trying to convince European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to give their country the most prestigious posts in the EU executive. In this week’s edition of EU Confidential podcast, host Sarah Wheaton is joined by Barbara Moens, POLITICO’s chief EU correspondent, to talk about how this complex political ...
Aug 02, 2024•34 min•Ep. 381
Is American politics giving you whiplash? This week’s episode of EU Confidential has all you need to cope, with primers on the foreign policy postures of Vice President Kamala Harris and JD Vance. Dialling in from Washington, POLITICO National Security Reporter Eric Bazail-Eimil helps us understand who Harris will lean on when it comes to Europe, while Global Playbook author Suzanne Lynch recounts her interview with Vance on U.S. support for Ukraine. Next, a literal trigger warning: We take you ...
Jul 26, 2024•40 min•Ep. 380
Big decisions awaited the new class of MEPs this week: Whether to back Ursula von der Leyen for a second term atop the Commission; which committee assignments to pursue; and, most urgently, which Parliament bar to visit to get away from it all. Join host Sarah Wheaton for a romp through the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament, and relive a week that was so crucial for Europe's direction over the next five years. Sarah is joined by POLITICO's Eddy Wax, who takes us behind the scenes of all...
Jul 19, 2024•37 min•Ep. 379
Just days into his country's rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán again stunned other European leaders by setting off on a series of visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing, styling himself as a peace negotiator with a mandate from Brussels. Host Sarah Wheaton and POLITICO's chief EU correspondent Barbara Moens discuss Orbán's rough-and-tumble diplomacy tour and reactions it has provoked among the bloc's politicians and diplomats. But beyond an...
Jul 12, 2024•35 min•Ep. 378
France has voted and the results are in — our POLITICO team in Paris discusses the surprising results of the final round of the parliamentary election in this special episode of EU Confidential. Host Nicholas Vinocur is first joined by POLITICO's Victor Goury-Laffont to break down the results and explain how President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and the left-wing alliance mobilized to stymie Marine Le Pen’s far right National Rally. POLITICO's executive editor in France, Marion Solletty, joins t...
Jul 08, 2024•22 min
Just days before the final round of France's snap parliamentary elections, we discuss possible scenarios for what could emerge from the messy political situation in Paris: shiny new leaders, a shaky new government, rocky cohabitation — or even more chaos. Host Sarah Wheaton talks to POLITICO's senior correspondent in Paris, Clea Caulcutt. Later she's joined by former U.S. Ambassador to the EU Anthony Gardner and the director of the German Marshall Fund's Berlin office, Sudha David-Wilp. They bre...
Jul 05, 2024•34 min•Ep. 377
Straight from the European Council summit, we bring you the latest news and analysis on a range of tough issues on the leaders' agenda. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO colleagues Barbara Moens and Aitor Hernández-Morales to discuss how EU leaders agreed on who they want to lead the top EU institutions over the next five years. With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a special guest at the summit, EU leaders also talked about Ukraine — following the official opening of accession ...
Jun 28, 2024•33 min•Ep. 376
Almost two weeks after the EU election, there is still a lot of political manoeuvring going on — both in Brussels and in national capitals. First, POLITICO's chief EU correspondent, Barbara Moens, recaps of the race for the top jobs after European leaders failed to reach a deal at their informal dinner in Brussels earlier this week. Then, we zoom in on the countries and leaders who until recently were calling the shots, but now seem weakened — and those who are trying to seize the new zeitgeist ...
Jun 21, 2024•38 min•Ep. 375
As the EU comes to terms with its new (sort of) political reality following last weekend's European Parliament election, France is already back in campaign mode — preparing for snap elections called unexpectedly by President Emmanuel Macron. The French president dissolved the National Assembly in response to the massive success of the far-right National Rally in the European election (and the poor showing of his own Renaissance party). Host Sarah Wheaton and her colleagues discuss Macron's shock...
Jun 14, 2024•28 min•Ep. 374
As election result projections were revealed on Sunday evening, our EU Confidential team recorded a live episode with first reactions and analysis from our POLITICO newsroom. Host Sarah Wheaton and the team looked beyond the numbers and analyzed the direction the EU might take as a consequence of the vote. We also discussed French President Emmanuel Macron's shock decision to dissolve the parliament after the far-right National Rally won the popular vote. Our guests were POLITICO editor-in-chief...
Jun 10, 2024•41 min
As voting gets underway throughout the EU, we check in on the polls and learn which stories are dominating the headlines in capitals around Europe. Host Sarah Wheaton discusses the latest polling numbers with our data reporter Hanne Cokelaere. Be sure to check out POLITICO's Poll of Polls for the latest insights. We also hear from colleagues around Europe who explain which stories are uppermost in voters' minds as they head to the ballot box. Aitor Hernández-Morales gives us a snapshot from Spai...
Jun 07, 2024•36 min•Ep. 373
