

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

Jul 15, 2019 • 32min
Morals and the Mediterranean
We don't call it 'the migrant crisis' anymore. Yet, every day, people attempt the treacherous crossing to reach our shores, and more than 500 people have died trying this year alone. This week we're talking about the politics of fear and the laws of the sea with the Italian migration expert Matteo Villa. We're also talking about rockets, bees and Greece's return to the right.
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Thanks for listening.

Jul 8, 2019 • 24min
Brave and competent women
This week, the European women steering the ship. Katy and Dominic discuss the case of Carola Rackete, the rescue boat captain who has come to symbolize the moral divide over migration, as well as the nomination of Germany's Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde to two of the most powerful jobs on the continent. In the meantime, the biggest Czech protests since the fall of communism have been giving the populist billionaire PM Andrej Babiš a run for his money. We ring up Benjamin Roll, one of the young leaders of the growing protest movement.
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Thanks for listening.

Jul 1, 2019 • 28min
Notes from Black Europe
What does it mean to be black in Europe? This week's guest Johny Pitts went on a five-month journey around the continent, interviewing black Europeans and exploring his own identity. The result is his brilliant new book, 'Afropean: Notes from Black Europe', which makes the case for a community that crosses borders. Also this week: the role of railways in the Holocaust; whether or not we should talk about Merkel; and a strange reward for good behaviour.
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Thanks for listening.

Jun 25, 2019 • 28min
Eldorado
This week, the strange and rather wonderful story of how the BBC tried (and failed, pretty badly) to create a European soap opera back in the 1990s. Former 'Eldorado' star Kai Maurer reflects on how his unlikely role playing a German beach bum kicked off his acting career and how the show was ahead of its time. Plus: a landmark Spanish court ruling and the ugly realities of European consensus politics. Read the article that sparked Katy's El Dorado obsession here. Should we launch a campaign to get the BBC to bring it back? Send us your thoughts: europeanspodcast@gmail.com Twitter Facebook Instagram Thanks to our supremely generous Patreon supporters. You can help us keep the show running by chipping in here. See you next week.

Jun 17, 2019 • 31min
Sarajevo calling
This week, the increasingly worrying politics of a country with one of the most complicated governments in the world. We're talking to the Bosnian journalist Aleksandar Brezar about troubles that go ignored all too often in Europe and wartime scars that have yet to heal. We're also talking about European countries' varying approaches to regulating what women do with their bodies, and a transatlantic romance that has stood the test of time.
Read Aleksandar's excellent piece in the Guardian and check out his podcast about Southeastern Europe, Sarajevo Calling.
Rachel Kadish's superb piece about the humanity of Anne Frank can be found here, and France 24's in-depth reporting on abortion across Europe is here.
Thanks as always to the supremely generous Patreon donors who are keeping this show running. You can chip in as little as a dollar a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast.
Thanks for listening.
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Jun 10, 2019 • 30min
Europe needs culture
Hands up if you've got a better idea of what's happening in American politics than European politics, despite living on this side of the pond? This week André Wilkens, the new director of the European Cultural Foundation, argues that Europeans need to get better at telling their own story — whether it's in the form of a Hamilton-style hit musical or otherwise. Also: scooter wars, holograms, and when the left gets tough on immigration.
You can read Katy's piece on the arrival of electric scooters in Paris last summer here in the Guardian, and see a holographic elephant here.
If you like the show, you can help us out by giving us five big gold stars on Apple Podcasts, or join our hugely generous Patreon supporters.
Thanks for listening.
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Jun 3, 2019 • 29min
Who won?
We've just elected a bunch of people to represent 500 million of us. But when it comes to the results of the European elections, most of us have been preoccupied with what happened in our own countries. This week we're zooming out to take a look at the continent as a whole with Caroline de Gruyter, the Oslo-based Europe correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC. Plus: Ibizagate, part 2; rural PR stunts; and the importance of correctly-spelled tweets.
Many thanks to our Patreon supporters!
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Thanks for listening.

May 27, 2019 • 33min
The wars of the future
Should machines have the power to decide whether a human on the battlefield lives or dies? Ulrike Franke spends her days imagining the wars of the future. We chatted to her about ‘killer robots’ and rogue drones. Plus: a far-right honey-trap and Germany in the age of the influencer.
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Many thanks to our Patreon supporters!
See you next week.

May 21, 2019 • 40min
SPECIAL EPISODE: Bursting the Bubble, Part 1
Katy's never voted in a European election before. This week she tries to make amends by figuring out, finally, what the European parliament is and what MEPs actually do.
The elections are May 23-26 depending on what country you're in. Please vote!
This episode was made with support from the European Cultural Foundation. They support initatives which rethink Europe as an open and democratic space.
Thanks for listening.
europeanspodcast.com

May 13, 2019 • 35min
Syria, Kosovo, Brussels and the mountain
Countries all around Europe are dealing with the same dilemma: what to do with citizens who went to join ISIS. Tiny Kosovo is alone in opting to bring back a large group of its citizens when other countries are turning their backs. To find out why, Dominic talked to AJ Naddaff, who spent months researching why so many left Kosovo to fight, and the country's humane response to bringing people back.
Over on the western edge of Europe Katy's been chatting to the French writer Maxime Calligaro about why the Brussels bubble is a surprisingly great place to set a crime novel. Maxime and Katy also spoke at the Ancienne Belgique last week about how to make Europe less boring (you can watch it here). Thanks Liveurope for hosting!
Also this week: sheep, bears (you can read about the mystery here in El País) and an attempted coup.
We'll be back next week for a special episode on how the European parliament works and why you should give a damn about the elections. Til then, hit us up online:
PATREON: we're hugely grateful for your donations to help keep the show running!
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europeanspodcast@gmail.com