Slovenia, aka Katy's favourite country, is increasingly drawing comparisons with Hungary and Poland when it comes to the state of its democracy. Can this worrying direction of travel be reversed? This week we ring up our favourite Sloveniologist Aljaž Pengov Bitenc to find out. We're also talking about Bulgaria's political rock star, and a shocking attack on a Dutch crime journalist.

This week's Isolation Inspiration: Katla and an update from Death In Ice Valley. You should also check out our interview with Death In Ice Valley host Marit Higraff, from May 2018! Listen here.

You can follow Aljaž on Twitter here and read his blog here.

We're off on a little summer break! We'll be back in September. In the meantime, we think you'll love the visual version of our the first episode in our series This Is What A Generation Sounds Like, Josh and Franco, and the second episode, Denisa.

This episode was produced as part of Sphera, a collective of independent European media. Find out more at sphera-hub.com.

Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few euros / dollars / pounds a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast. You can also help new listeners find the show by leaving us a review.

Senior producer: Katz Laszlo

Producers: Priyanka Shankar and Andrei Popoviciu

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

This podcast is part of the Are We Europe family. Find more like-minded European podcasts at areweeurope.com/audio-family.

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