The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
The Europeans is a fresh and entertaining weekly podcast about European politics and culture, recorded each week between Paris and Amsterdam with fascinating guests joining from across Europe. This multiple award-winning podcast fills you in on the major European politics stories and other European news of the week, as well as fun and quirky nuggets that have been missed by most media outlets.
Hosted by Katy Lee, a journalist based in Paris, and Dominic Kraemer, an opera singer in Amsterdam, The Europeans covers everything from elections and climate policy to the best new European films and TV shows. We also produce investigative podcasts about everything from the European farming lobby to oat milk. Yes, oat milk.
Katy and Dominic are old friends, and the warmth and intimacy of their conversations will soon make you feel like you’ve known them a long time too. They approach topics with a light and humorous tone that makes The Europeans stand out from other European news podcasts, while remaining journalistically rigorous and meticulously fact-checked. The Europeans has been recommended by The New York Times, The Guardian, Buzzfeed, The Financial Times, and many other outlets.
Katy Lee, a British-French reporter, has written for major outlets including The Guardian, Politico Europe, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Foreign Policy and The New Statesman for more than a decade, covering French and European politics and more recently, climate change. Dominic Kraemer, a British-German opera singer, performs across Europe when he is not co-hosting The Europeans, with roles recently at the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Dutch National Opera and the Münchener Biennale. The Europeans’ team is completed by producers Katz Laszlo in Amsterdam and Wojciech Oleksiak in Warsaw. You’ll hear them joining Katy and Dominic from time to time, particularly during investigative episodes like ‘The Oatly Chronicles’ and ‘The Big-Agri Bully Boys’.
The Europeans’ breezy, informal approach to covering European news has won awards such as a Covering Climate Now award for an episode about the Swiss women who sued their government at the European Court of Human Rights demanding more climate action; Germany’s prestigious CIVIS Media Prize for ‘Mohamed’, an episode that explores the everyday life of a young undocumented man in Amsterdam; and best LGBTQIA+ short at the MiraBan UK Film Awards for ‘Josh and Franco’, the coming-of-age story of a father and son, both gay.
Our guests have included everyone from major figures in European politics such as Alexander Stubb, now the President of Finland, and Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, to star chefs Asma Khan and Christian Puglisi, celebrated illustrator Christoph Niemann, and environmentalist George Monbiot. Since launching in 2017, we’ve talked about everything from elections in France, Italy and many more countries besides, to the politics of halloumi cheese in Cyprus, to why Donald Trump is so hard for TV interpreters to translate.
We pride ourselves on covering European politics, European news and European culture from a pan-European perspective. You’ll often hear stories on The Europeans from parts of the continent that don’t usually receive enough attention from major international media outlets, especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe.
You might enjoy The Europeans if you also enjoy one of these other podcasts: The News Agents, On the Media, Today in Focus, Inside Europe, The Journal, EU Confidential, The Daily, The Globalist, Reasons to be Cheerful, The Media Show, Power Play, and The New Statesman. Whether you’re already a European news nerd, or simply someone who’d like to be better informed about what’s happening across Europe, The Europeans is the podcast for you.
Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/europeanspodcast
Hosted by Katy Lee, a journalist based in Paris, and Dominic Kraemer, an opera singer in Amsterdam, The Europeans covers everything from elections and climate policy to the best new European films and TV shows. We also produce investigative podcasts about everything from the European farming lobby to oat milk. Yes, oat milk.
Katy and Dominic are old friends, and the warmth and intimacy of their conversations will soon make you feel like you’ve known them a long time too. They approach topics with a light and humorous tone that makes The Europeans stand out from other European news podcasts, while remaining journalistically rigorous and meticulously fact-checked. The Europeans has been recommended by The New York Times, The Guardian, Buzzfeed, The Financial Times, and many other outlets.
Katy Lee, a British-French reporter, has written for major outlets including The Guardian, Politico Europe, Agence France-Presse (AFP), Foreign Policy and The New Statesman for more than a decade, covering French and European politics and more recently, climate change. Dominic Kraemer, a British-German opera singer, performs across Europe when he is not co-hosting The Europeans, with roles recently at the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Dutch National Opera and the Münchener Biennale. The Europeans’ team is completed by producers Katz Laszlo in Amsterdam and Wojciech Oleksiak in Warsaw. You’ll hear them joining Katy and Dominic from time to time, particularly during investigative episodes like ‘The Oatly Chronicles’ and ‘The Big-Agri Bully Boys’.
The Europeans’ breezy, informal approach to covering European news has won awards such as a Covering Climate Now award for an episode about the Swiss women who sued their government at the European Court of Human Rights demanding more climate action; Germany’s prestigious CIVIS Media Prize for ‘Mohamed’, an episode that explores the everyday life of a young undocumented man in Amsterdam; and best LGBTQIA+ short at the MiraBan UK Film Awards for ‘Josh and Franco’, the coming-of-age story of a father and son, both gay.
Our guests have included everyone from major figures in European politics such as Alexander Stubb, now the President of Finland, and Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, to star chefs Asma Khan and Christian Puglisi, celebrated illustrator Christoph Niemann, and environmentalist George Monbiot. Since launching in 2017, we’ve talked about everything from elections in France, Italy and many more countries besides, to the politics of halloumi cheese in Cyprus, to why Donald Trump is so hard for TV interpreters to translate.
We pride ourselves on covering European politics, European news and European culture from a pan-European perspective. You’ll often hear stories on The Europeans from parts of the continent that don’t usually receive enough attention from major international media outlets, especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe.
You might enjoy The Europeans if you also enjoy one of these other podcasts: The News Agents, On the Media, Today in Focus, Inside Europe, The Journal, EU Confidential, The Daily, The Globalist, Reasons to be Cheerful, The Media Show, Power Play, and The New Statesman. Whether you’re already a European news nerd, or simply someone who’d like to be better informed about what’s happening across Europe, The Europeans is the podcast for you.
Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/europeanspodcast
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 24, 2025 • 46min
Housing policy: Who Does It Best? - Part 2
Katz goes back to the drawing board. If the housing crisis is really about wealth inequality, doesn’t the policy we need to fix it… need to address wealth inequality? We go in deep, and what Katz finds makes us wonder: are we even having the right conversation when it comes to the housing crisis?
If you're curious about where you stand on your country's wealth ladder, you can find the World Bank’s calculator here, which adjusts for things like home ownership.
The intergenerational wealth audit that Molly co-authored, you can find here.
You can find one of the OECD’s reports on housing tax in Europe here.
You can find Cody’s book on housing shame here.
Interested in hearing more radio that looks at how politics gets into our intimate lives? Journalist Anna Sale’s book and podcast “about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more” have been a huge inspiration.
If you want to know your renters' rights, many countries have renters' unions that give (legal) advice. Here's the Dutch one: Woonbond.
And most importantly, this series was fully funded by you - our listeners! Our generous crowdfunders hit our goal within two months, and made it possible for us to do extensive reporting fully independently. We couldn’t be more grateful. If you’re feeling inspired to support our ongoing work, please go to patreon.com/europeanspodcast. You can donate as little as 3 euros, less than an overpriced cappuccino! But you can also donate plenty more ;)
Want to support us in another way? Please consider telling one or two friends specifically about this episode, and sharing it with them. It is the most effective way for us to reach people!
Written, reported and produced by: Katz Laszlo
Editors: Jasmin Baoumy, Katy Lee
Editorial support: Dominic Kraemer, Morgan Childs, Uršula Zaletelj, Maja Stepančič
Sound design: Jesse Lou Lawson
Mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music and SFX: Epidemic & FreeSound.Org
Artwork: RTiiiKA
Special thanks to: Vera Vrijmoeth, Georgia Walker, Cody Hochstenbach, Molly Broome, Juha Kahila, Ton Heijdra, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, Museum Het Schip, Woonbond, and the many more friends and strangers who talked to us about housing and money.
YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram | Mastodon | hello@europeanspodcast.com
Oct 24, 2025 • 51min
Housing policy: Who Does It Best? - Part 1
Why is your rent so high? What are the policies that created this housing crisis, and what policies can get us out of it? This week we launch the first two parts of our new series, ‘Who Does It Best?’. At a time when many people feel like their governments are not taking care of them, we wondered: how do policies actually shape our daily lives? And are there places getting it right?
In Housing Part 1, Katz takes us on a journey through Vienna, Finland, and Paris, looking for Europe’s most ambitious housing policies and what we can learn from them (and maybe even copy?!). But first, Katz and Dominic sit down to face the elephant in the room: money, housing, and inheritance.
If you’re curious about where you stand on your country’s wealth ladder, you can find the World Bank’s wealth calculator here.
If you want to know your renters’ rights, many countries have renters’ unions that give (legal) advice. Here is the Dutch one: Woonbond.
Interested in hearing more radio that looks at how politics gets into our intimate lives? Journalist Anna Sale’s book and podcast “about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more” have been a huge inspiration for this podcast.
And most importantly, this series was fully funded by you - our listeners! Our generous crowdfunders hit our goal within two months, and made it possible for us to do extensive reporting fully independently. We couldn’t be more grateful. If you’re feeling inspired to support our ongoing work, please go to patreon.com/europeanspodcast. You can donate as little as 3 euros, less than an overpriced cappuccino! But you can also donate plenty more ;)
Want to support us in another way? Please consider telling one or two friends specifically about this episode, and sharing it with them. It is the most effective way for us to reach people!
Written, reported and produced by: Katz Laszlo
Editors: Jasmin Baoumy, Katy Lee
Editorial support: Dominic Kraemer, Morgan Childs, Uršula Zaletelj, Maja Stepančič
Sound design: Jesse Lou Lawson
Mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music and SFX: Epidemic & FreeSound.Org, including pneumatic drill by acclivity
Artwork: RTiiiKA
Special thanks to: Vera Vrijmoeth, Georgia Walker, Cody Hochstenbach, Molly Broome, Juha Kahila, Ton Heijdra, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, Museum Het Schip, Woonbond, and the many more friends and strangers who talked to us about housing and money.
YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram | Mastodon | hello@europeanspodcast.com
Oct 21, 2025 • 1min
Who Does It Best? - A new miniseries, coming this week
A new mini-series from The Europeans, landing in this feed later this week. From Paris to Breda, Rome to Reykjavik, ‘Who Does It Best?’ showcases some of Europe’s most successful policies—and offers a few lessons for other countries along the way.
Oct 8, 2025 • 57min
Babiš is back
It’s been a busy week for European politics, European protests, and European wallabies. In the midst of the madness, we caught up with Kateřina Šafaříková of Czech news outlet Seznam Zprávy, who filled us in on the Czech Republic’s recent parliamentary elections. Is the probable next Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, likely to be an Orbán-esque thorn in the EU’s side, or does he just kinda wanna text with Macron? Kateřina shares her thoughts. We also catch up on the protests that Georgia’s democratic opposition has been staging against the country’s government in Tbilisi and a grassroots victory in Lithuania.
If you’re moved to learn more about what’s going on in Georgia, check out our interview with Anna Gvarishvili in the episode “Is this the end of Georgia’s European dream?” You can also follow some of the initiatives and journalists Wojciech recommends:
Project 64 https://x.com/64project_
George Melashivili https://x.com/geomel_ge
Marika Mikiashvili https://x.com/Mikiashvili_M
Anna Gvarishvili https://x.com/AnnaGvarishvili
You can discover more of Kateřina Šafaříková’s work over here or follow her on Instagram here.
This week's Inspiration Station recommendations are the documentary Pianoforte and the book Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, courtesy of Patreon member Pia.
Brace yourselves if you decide you do indeed want to hear the now former Lithuanian minister for culture singing on an episode of the Voice.
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.
00:00:47 Bentornato!
00:04:08 Good Week: Lithuania’s cultural sector
00:15:15 Bad Week: Georgian democratic opposition
00:28:11 Interview: Journalist Kateřina Šafaříková on last week’s Czech elections
00:47:34 The Inspiration Station: The documentary Pianoforte and the book Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
00:52:40 Happy Ending: Massive Der Spiegel wallaby scoop!
Producers: Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Sep 25, 2025 • 54min
Are we all trapped in a transatlantic Truman Show?
Can we talk about Trump’s culture war, Putin’s war on inclusivity, and just about everyone’s unwillingness to pay teachers fair wages—and giggle throughout? You better believe it. Nina Lamparski is back in the hosting chair, and strap in, listeners, because this week’s show is a *ride.*
Our guest this week is the delightful and incisive political analyst Paweł Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Paweł returns to the podcast to tell us why Europe is living in a Truman-Show-style universe directed by Donald Trump and his international team. We pick Paweł’s terrific brain about what our leaders can do to build upon the growing pro-European sentiment (really!) and engage with the US as its peer, not its lackey. Plus: Nina raises a glass of crémant to Luxembourgish teachers, who had what seems to us like a very swanky Good Week. And Dominic awards Bad Week to Eurovision, which seems to be crumbling whilst Russia’s Intervision is back and creepier than ever.
Mentioned in this episode:
The European Sentiment Compass 2025 from ECF and ECFR, “Reality show: Why Europe must not cave in Trump’s culture war”
culture war”
Europeans jingles composer Jim Barne’s Broadway(!) musical, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
This live blog from Czech Radio’s Zlín service that tracked the movements of Emil the Elk all summer
This week's Inspiration Station recommendations are Twelve Months of Monastery Soups, a cookbook by Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette, and Rejected: Designs for the European Flag by Jonas von Lenthe.
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.
00:00:47 This podcast is co-hosted by a bionic woman
00:04:45 Good Week: Luxembourgish teachers
00:12:18 Bad Week: Eurovision
00:29:09 Interview: Paweł Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations
00:43:50 The Inspiration Station: The books Twelve Months of Monastery Soups and Rejected: Designs for the European Flag
00:50:14 Happy Ending: Central Europe adopts elk mascot
Producers: Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram | Mastodon | hello@europeanspodcast.com
17 snips
Sep 18, 2025 • 51min
Should we be worried about Russian drones in NATO’s skies?
Join Johanna Fabrin, the managing director at 21st Europe, as she dreams up transformative blueprints for Europe. Discussing the innovative Starline rail vision, she reveals how intercity travel could transform into a seamless metro experience. Johanna emphasizes the importance of optimism and design in shaping Europe’s future. The conversation also explores playgrounds as vital civic infrastructure, enhancing children’s well-being and community resilience against challenges. It's a blend of visionary ideas and actionable designs!
Sep 11, 2025 • 49min
Terrible week for ABBA
The music industry is reeling due to what’s being called the 'largest intellectual property theft in history' — we’ll dig into the fight between Big Tech and the people who make the music. Meanwhile, Sweden’s new cultural canon has people fuming — not least because it leaves out ABBA.
We’ll also hear from Der Spiegel’s Gunter Latsch about his chilling investigation into the shadowy world of organ trafficking. And we’ll finish, as always, with something a little lighter: archaeologists in Denmark have been uncovering a kind of Stone Age Atlantis beneath the sea and they’ve been using a funky underwater vacuum to do so.
This week's Inspiration Station recommendations: Addison Rae - 'Headphones On' | Behind the Song and Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien (translated by Jamie Bulloch)
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.
Other resources for this week's episode:
No Abba, no meatballs? Sweden’s new cultural canon is a listicle that will soon be forgotten:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/04/sweden-cultural-canon-abba-ikea-meatballs
Since we recorded this episode, a US federal judge has postponed approval of the $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright deal: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/anthropic-judge-blasts-copyright-pact-as-nowhere-close-to-done
Taskforce recommends prosecution of Mishra for alleged organ trafficking:
https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/health-science/article/2001525127/taskforce-recommends-prosecution-of-mishra-for-alleged-organ-trafficking
00:00:47 Introduction: Emoji fuelled marital strife
00:04:26 Good Week: Sweden’s controversial ’cultural canon’
00:13:31 Bad Week: The fight between AI and musicians
00:27:05 Interview: Gunther Latch on Germans going abroad for kidneys
00:40:51 Inspiration Station: ’Headphones On’ and ’Love in Five Acts’
00:46:01 Happy Ending: Denmark’s Stone Age Atlantis
Producers: Katz Laszlo, Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
Hosts: Nina Lamparski and Dominic Kraemer
YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram | Mastodon | hello@europeanspodcast.com
Sep 5, 2025 • 50min
Why is the EU not acting on Gaza?
This week, we’re dedicating the entire episode to Gaza. We have a lot of questions about the EU’s role in what’s happening there: Why is the EU not suspending trade with, or at the very least banning weapon sales to, Israel? Why is Israel being treated differently than the way Russia has been? And what will inaction mean for the credibility of the EU?
We put those questions to two esteemed guests: Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, who served as the EU’s representative to Palestine from 2020 until July 2023, and Shada Islam, Lahore-born, Brussels-based commentator who has recently written some incredibly moving and thought-provoking pieces about the EU’s complicity in the war in Gaza. And we round out the episode with a brief Inspiration Station recommendation: the book Enter Ghost by British-Palestinian author Isabella Hammad.
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.
00:00:46 Introduction: The cucumber season is over
00:02:53 What’s been happening in Gaza for the past two years
00:06:45 Interview: Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff
00:29:00 Interview: Shada Islam
00:46: 16 The Inspiration Station: the book Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
Producers: Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak
Editorial support: Katz Laszlo
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne, Mariska Martina and Morrisella by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).
YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram | Mastodon | hello@europeanspodcast.com
Aug 22, 2025 • 53min
Three Rivers and a Sausage Fight
It’s our second week of “cucumber season” programming, and fair warning: we’re really leaning into the late-summer goofiness. This week, we go hard on German gastronomy, with a deep dive into Europe’s declining alcohol consumption and a recap of the utterly absurd row over the origins of Bratwurst.
Because we don’t want you to think we’ve totally lost the plot, we also had a perfectly civilised conversation with Robert Winder, the prolific author and sometime editor of The Independent and Granta whose new book, Three Rivers, comes out next week. Robert spoke with our producer Katz about the waterways that shape Europe as we know it—and about their future in a warming climate. You can purchase the book here on 28 August.
This week's Inspiration Station recommendations are the Danish film The Guilty and the audio recordings of Colm Tóibín’s novels Brooklyn and Long Island. Our Happy Ending comes from Helsinki, which managed to go an entire year with no traffic fatalities! You can read more about the milestone achievement here and how they did it here.
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.
00:00:47 Welcome back to cucumber season!
00:03:09 Good Week: European livers
00:16:29 Bad Week: Bratwurst ensnared in national feud
00:31:16 Interview: Robert Winder reconnects us with the poetry of rivers
00:44:00 The Inspiration Station: the film The Guilty and Colm Tóibín’s novels Brooklyn and Long Island
00:49:11 Happy Ending: Helsinki successfully stamps out road deaths
Producers: Morgan Childs, Katz Laszlo, and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram | Mastodon | hello@europeanspodcast.com
8 snips
Aug 14, 2025 • 51min
Save the games! Preserve the bread! Guard your rabbits!
Karl De Smedt, the head of the Puratos Sourdough Library in Belgium, shares his passion for preserving sourdough starters, likening them to the rich tapestry of European cultures. He discusses the ethical dilemmas surrounding animal conservation and highlights the unique role his library plays in documenting breadmaking biodiversity. The conversation also touches on quirky topics like the cultural significance of strawberry pasta and a provocative zoo program in Denmark, blending humor with serious issues of preservation and identity.
