EU Scream

Concern is growing that emergency powers deployed to control the coronavirus pandemic are being used to erode democracy and civil rights. Joelle Grogan, a senior lecturer in law at Middlesex University London, describes the curbs on liberty that may be coming your way — and what can be done so such measures are proportionate and fair. Grogan also sounds the alarm about steps that could allow Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to rule by decree in response to the outbreak. “Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125” by Papalin is licensed under CC by 3.0. "Magic Hour" by Three Chain Links is licensed under CC by 4.0. Wael Koudaih kindly contributed his track “Thawra” to this episode. You’ll find more of his music under the name Rayess Bek. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream.Support the show

Michael Peel of the Financial Times unpicks the patterns underlying the authoritarian revival in Europe and worldwide. His recently published book, The Fabulists, explores how leaders menace democracy and human rights while claiming to be modernizers and saviors. It's an artfully written journalistic memoir from a decade of foreign correspondence. It's also a cautionary tale about how quickly countries catch the autocracy virus. Among Peel’s most conspicuous warnings: Europeans who think they are immune, are wrong. “Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125” by Papalin is licensed under CC by 3.0. "Fantasy in my Mind" by Alan Špiljak is licensed under CC by 4.0. Wael Koudaih kindly contributed his track “Thawra” to this episode. You’ll find more of his music under the name Rayess Bek. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream.Support the show

How are campaigners winning progressive victories in the age of bigots and bullies? Kajal Odedra is the UK director of Change.org, a global petition service that allows members of the public to mobilise support for issues they care about. She’s also the author of the 2019 book Do Something: Activism for Everyone. Andrew Stroehlein is the European Media Director for Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organisation that investigates and reports on abuses worldwide. His Twitter feed on human rights violations and campaigns for justice has more than 90,000 followers. Magid Magid is among the more than 70 UK members of the European Parliament who had to leave office because of Brexit. One of his final initiatives as an MEP was to gather nominations for Europe’s Biggest Bigot Awards — and Europe’s Biggest Bigot-Busters. Click to Magid’s site for the winners. Musician Wael Koudaih contributed his track “Thawra” to this episode. You’ll find more of his music under the name Rayess Bek. Visit our website for our episode art and for more EU Scream.Support the show

For many people, Emmanuel Macron still represents the great hope for an open and liberal Europe. So what to make of the French president’s growing preoccupation with Islam, terror and security? Mehreen Khan of The Financial Times dissects Macron’s policies and his recent interview with The Economist. For more on Macron, we go to Majlinda Bregu, the Sarajevo-based secretary general of the Regional Cooperation Council. She criticises Macron’s decision to veto EU membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania. She also rebuts prejudices about Albania heard over dinner in Brussels. Others in this episode include co-President of the European Greens Philippe Lamberts; the Emperor Charlemagne; and European Commission Vice President Albert Kuñardocz. Kuñardocz, who was formerly responsible for inland waterways and catering, is active on Twitter. In fact, Twitter is the only place you’ll find him. The celebrated Lebanese musician Wael Koudaih kindly contributed his tracks “Baghdad” and “Thawra” to this episode. You’ll find more of his music under the name Rayess Bek. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream.Support the show

Far-right trolls often target women and minorities and seek to subvert the work of politicians, journalists and activists. But technology platforms and their supporters tend to resist the kinds of legislation that could help tame the trolls. Effective rules still could be years away. So how can we, as users, deal with this fantastically dark side of life online? Andrew Stroehlein, the European Media Director for Human Rights Watch, has returned to EU Scream with concrete advice on how to respond to troll attacks. David Babbs led the successful digital campaign group 38 Degrees, and so he also knows a thing or two about social media. These days Babbs is the lead consultant for an initiative called CUTI, or Clean up the Internet. The idea is to oblige platforms like Facebook and Twitter to give users ways to protect themselves from anonymous trolls and abusers. Full disclosure: CUTI is funded by the Laura Kinsella Foundation, which also has granted support to EU Scream.Support the show

Ahdaf Soueif is a model of the politically engaged artist. She wrote the bestselling novel The Map of Love, she was a frequent commentator during the revolution in her native Egypt, and she is in the news again after resigning as a trustee of the British Museum over its reluctance to discuss issues like repatriation. Throughout her adult life, Soueif has moved between Britain and Egypt, and she grew up in a Cairo where Europeans and Arabs lived side-by-side. It’s a world she calls a Mezzaterra, a term she coined for a place where people drift peaceably between cultures. As Soueif’s Mezzaterra has crumbled, peoples on both sides of the Mediterranean have become culturally poorer and less secure. Soueif discussed the Mezzaterra with EU Scream after receiving the 2019 ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture in Amsterdam. She also talked about the persistence of racist thinking, EU-funded authoritarianism in Egypt, and the Cold War roots of terror. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream. “Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125” by Papalin is licensed under CC by 3.0. Support the show

André Wilkens is the director of the European Cultural Foundation, an organisation created after the Second World War to help heal the continent’s wounds. Under Wilkens the Foundation has stepped up grantmaking to arts and media aiming to strengthen democracy at another pivotal moment in Europe's history. Marta Keil is a serious figure in the Polish arts scene. She co-runs a performing arts institute, curates festivals, and written extensively on dance and choreography. She knows first hand the pressure on culture from the ruling Law and Justice party. Her overview begins at the Polski theatre in the city of Wrocław. She describes an epic clash between Croatian director Oliver Frljić and Polish Culture Minister Piotr Gliński, and the steady hollowing out of the Polish museum sector. Support the show

A conversation with Anthony L. Gardner, the former US ambassador to the EU under President Obama. Gardner is a former director on the National Security Council who has spent much of his career in Europe. He left his ambassadorial post in Brussels when Donald Trump entered the White House, and he was succeeded by Gordon Sondland, a hotel magnate with scant government experience. Sondland has more or less hewed to a Trumpian script, occasionally pouring scorn on Brussels officials and raising questions about the relevance of the European project. Now Sondland has been swept up in the investigation that could result in Trump’s impeachment. Congressional panels are pouring over details about Sondland's possible role in pressuring Ukraine's leadership to investigate Joe Biden, Trump’s likeliest rival in next year’s US election, and Biden's son. It’s against this background that Gardner talks with EU Scream about what’s ailing American diplomacy in Europe, his forthcoming book on the importance of EU-US relations, and where the continent may be heading under its new leadership.A lexicon for this episode:A “stagiaire” is a trainee; "DG Comp” is the EU's antitrust department; the “Sablon” is an upscale part of Brussels teeming with antique and chocolate shops; “TTIP" is an acronym for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a failed US-EU effort to strike a trade deal; Wilbur Ross is U.S. commerce secretary; Herman Van Rompuy represented EU heads of state and government as the first president of the European Council; “ECSC” is the European Coal and Steel Community, the group of six countries that started an integration process eventually leading to creation of the EU; SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a network through which interbank transfers are traditionally made; “PESCO” is Permanent Structured Cooperation, an EU policy goal for developing joint military capabilities. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream. “Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125” by Papalin is licensed under CC by 3.0. “Airside No. 9” is played by Lara Natale.Support the show

Should lobbyists engage with far-right and extremist lawmakers? After the EU elections in May, about 20 percent of members of the European Parliament have far-right agendas. That's a big gain — up from 10-to-15 percent five years ago. That’s also around 150 far-right lawmakers companies can lobby for favourable votes and amendments. Many people are uncomfortable with that prospect. Far-right parties are rife with misogyny, homophobia and islamophobia; many have members who openly admire Italian and German fascism and Putin's Russia. Lobbyists who work with these lawmakers risk normalising hate-mongering and anti-democratic values. Those concerns prompted EU Scream to take an ambitious step for such a young podcast: holding our first event. We had great support from Res Publica Europa, a new group mainly made up of European Union officials, and from Open Forum Europe, the think tank for the open source software community in Brussels. Our mission was to draw up some preliminary guidelines for lobbyists. We knew that was going to be ambitious. We nevertheless reached areas of consensus thanks to Alberto Alemanno, a law professor at French business school HEC Paris, and thanks to some dazzling panelists: Maris Hellrand, a journalist and activist from Estonia; Benedikt Herges, the head of the Brussels office for German technology and engineering company Siemens; Heather Grabbe, the director of EU affairs for Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic group founded by George Soros; and Michiel van Hulten, a former member of Parliament and the director of Transparency International EU. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream. “Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125” by Papalin is licensed under CC by 3.0. “Airside No. 9” is played by Lara Natale. Aquarium from “The Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saëns is licensed under CC by 3.0. Support the show

Pastors and plutocrats are sponsoring an ultra-conservative agenda in Europe. Many of them have links to Donald Trump. It’s a world that's pretty opaque. But over the past year, investigative journalists have done painstaking work to pierce the veil. We talk to Blaž Zgaga, a multi-award winning investigative journalist from Slovenia. Zgaga writes for Croatia's Nacional and publications including EUobserver. He’s also a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and European Investigative Collaborations where he helps coordinate large cross-border investigations — including on the reach of the Christian lobby. He’s emerged with extraordinary detail about some of the biggest funders of faith-based causes in Europe and their links to Trumpworld. Another chronicler of the merging of fundamentalist Christianity with European public policy is Mary Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was formerly with online activist network Avaaz and was a senior editor at Prospect magazine. She’s now editor-in-chief of openDemocracy, an online platform that's also done exhaustive work on what U.S. non-profit groups disclose about their foreign spending. Fitzgerald's platform also has reported on the arrival in Europe of US-style political campaign funding — funding of the kind that's hard to trace and potentially unlimited. Visit our website for episode art and for more EU Scream. “Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125” by Papalin is licensed under CC by 3.0. “Airside No. 9” is played by Lara Natale.Support the show