2026: The year Europe gets its act together?
We are returning from our winter holidays feeling refreshed, renewed, and optimistic about 2026. Ha ha ha ha! No, but seriously, Trump’s capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores was the New Year’s gift that Europe certainly did not ask for, and it raises a host of alarming questions. Among them: Does this move grant a permission slip for Vladimir Putin to encroach even further into Europe? And what does this mean for Greenland?
As we tiptoe into the year ahead with heaps of anxiety about what it might have in store, we wanted to get some perspective from Alberto Alemanno, professor of EU law, founder of The Good Lobby, and longtime friend of the podcast. Alberto always has a smart, fresh perspective on what’s happening on the continent, and despite being jetlagged this week, he certainly did not disappoint.
We’re also talking this week about Bulgaria’s adoption of the euro—a move that comes with some risks, but about which we are cautiously optimistic—and about the 308,000 Greek students who recently lost their student status.
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KATY LEE:
This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com forward slash Europeans podcast.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Hello, and welcome to the very first episode of the Europeans in 2026. We're here with three of us today. Perhaps it's a sign of all that energy bubbling inside of us for the new year. I'm Dominic in Amsterdam, just about considering the snowpocalypse that's happening here, made the entire national transport system go down for a few days. I'm joined by Katy Lee in Paris.
KATY LEE:
Hello.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Hi, Katy. And Katz Laszlo in…actually, I don't know where you are. Where are you?
KATZ LASZLO:
I'm in Sicily. It's lovely here. 17 degrees of light winter sun.
KATY LEE:
Oh, way to rub it in.
KATZ LASZLO:
I’m feeling particularly jolly because I've had like a cannola every single day and I hiked Mount Etna. So I'm feeling very different than you guys.
KATY LEE:
Dominic, where's the button to eject Katz from this call?
KATZ LASZLO:
If it's any consolation, I've got a light case of bronchitis too.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay, that makes me feel better because all my new year energy was just like sapping out of me quickly.
KATY LEE:
I've actually been quite enjoying the snow. Sorry to say that, Dominic. I've just been playing in it.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
No, snow is absolutely wonderful. I love how it like turns our lives upside down, except for the fact that if you're trying to get from London to Amsterdam by train, as I was yesterday, it's really, really not fun.
KATY LEE:
You had an epic journey while I was playing with snowballs and enjoying the sight of normally uptight Parisians also throwing snowballs. It's been fun here, but we're getting to the slushy stage now. So people are going back to complaining about it and just being miserable Parisians.
It's what we do. But anyway, I've been very grateful for the snow because it's provided a bit of respite from global politics. 2026 has really thrown us in at the deep end, huh?
KATZ LASZLO:
My God.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It really has. And we're going to start this year with an interview with one of our favourite European analysts. Alberto Alemanno is back on the show later on, and he's going to be helping us take stock of where the continent is at in 2026. It's going to be one of those broad ranging interviews where we zoom out and look at the challenges that Europe might face this year and how prepared Europe is to deal with them.
That's coming up later on in the show. But first, it's time for Good Week, Bad Week, without me, because of the snow.
Thank you, Katz, for stepping in.
KATZ LASZLO:
Most welcome.
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KATY LEE:
Is this the first ever Good Week, Bad Week to come to us from Sicily?
KATZ LASZLO:
I think it is, yeah.
KATY LEE:
Oh, well, I'm annoyed that it's not me providing the Sicilian end of things, but you'll do.
KATZ LASZLO:
It's so amazing here. I know that you've told me that you cried at breakfast once while you were here. I've had no teary breakfast yet.
KATY LEE:
You will.
KATZ LASZLO:
Etna, which was like the main thing I was excited to see other than my lovely friends who are hosting me, she started exploding as I was on my way here. And I just think it's so amazing that there's a live volcano here and just it's so magic. And I drove to Etna and then we met this random woman and like the first woman we spoke to, she was like, “I've lived here all my life. I couldn't live anywhere else. It's mesmerising. Look at the lava.” And it was just really, really amazing.
KATY LEE:
Can you put a lava-y picture on our Instagram?
KATZ LASZLO:
I can. I don't have a picture of the lava myself, though, but I will absolutely share it. There's an amazing array of pictures.
KATY LEE:
Nice.
KATZ LASZLO:
All right. Maybe we should move on to all kinds of deep and dark policy in Good Week, Bad Week, Katy. Let's start with you, Katy. Who has had a good week?
KATY LEE:
I am going to cheat maybe more than I have ever cheated in Good Week, Bad Week and say that I hope we're going to look back at last week as a good week for Bulgaria. Can I do that?
KATZ LASZLO:
Make the case.
KATY LEE:
Okay. So I am going to give this very tentative Good Week to Bulgaria because as of the 1st of January, Bulgaria is a member of the Eurozone. Congratulations, Bulgaria.
KATZ LASZLO:
Oh, big news.
KATY LEE:
Am I right in thinking that you have quite a strong memory of the day that Spain joined the Euro when you were a kid?
KATZ LASZLO:
I do. Yeah. It was my first New Year's in Spain. And I just vividly remember like going down after midnight to a cash machine to get out the new money. And there was like all of this art made up because the pesetas had a coin with a hole in it so you could make jewellery out of it. And then we went down and we got cash out. And I remember vividly that my neighbour and my parents got out a 200 euro note. And I've just never seen that note ever.
KATY LEE:
I was going to say, does that still exist?
KATZ LASZLO:
It was like the symbol of the transition for me. And then I just only saw it. I actually saved up that summer for Monopoly Euro edition. Paris is the most fancy city, unsurprisingly. So that night and Euro Monopoly are the only places I've ever seen a 200 euro note.
KATY LEE:
Well, I hope that you will see one again one day, Katz. Maybe in Bulgaria, because it is the 21st country in Europe to start using our shared currency. It is the end of the Lev, which is the currency that they've been using there since 1881.
And the reason I'm feeling so cautious about giving it a good week is that Bulgarians are super divided about whether they support changing the currency. The opinion polls have basically been 50-50.
KATZ LASZLO:
OK, 50-50, pretty tight. It's amazing how many things are 50-50. What are the main arguments that the pro camp and the anti camp have put forward?
KATY LEE:
If you look at the pro camp, it is broadly made up of younger people, people with higher education, people who live in cities, business owners. Those people tend to think that Bulgaria joining the euro is a good thing. And the arguments are kind of obvious. So if you are a business, like let's say a food business that imports food from other European countries, being part of the euro makes your life a lot easier, like you're not going to have any costs anymore related to dealing with exchange rates in getting your supplies to Bulgaria.
It makes investments from other European countries a lot easier. So people are hoping there's going to be an influx of foreign investment to Bulgaria now. If you are a Bulgarian who travels a lot, your life is going to be easier now because you can go to 20 other countries just using your normal bank card without even thinking about it. And if you work in tourism, you might now be feeling optimistic that more European tourists will think of Bulgaria as an option for their vacation because it's now that little bit easier. So that's the pro camp.
The anti camp tends to be older, more rural, less educated. And some of the arguments are emotional, which is understandable. You know, people have used this currency for their whole lives. And especially for older people, it is a part of their national identity. I do wonder if that's going to be less and less the case with currencies in general, because younger generations in large parts of the world just don't use coins and banknotes as part of their everyday life in the way that they used to.
But yeah, in Bulgaria, they've tried to address that emotional national identity issue by putting super Bulgarian things on the new coins, things that were on the old coins, in fact. So the one euro coin has an Ivan on it, Bulgaria's first hermit.
KATZ LASZLO:
Ooh, I'm just looking him up now.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, he lived in the mountains in the hollow of a tree, apparently. Sounds like something you might do, Katz.
KATZ LASZLO:
I want to be alone.
KATY LEE:
I should mention that pro-Russian parties and pro-Russian online accounts have been really pretty active in pushing arguments against Bulgaria joining the euro, which makes sense, right? Bulgaria is already an EU member. It's a NATO member. It's in the Schengen zone. This is one of the last things that this country can do to knit itself closer to Europe and distance itself even more from Russia, which, of course, it was very close to under communism.
Some of the arguments pushed by these pro-Russian groups have been totally false, claiming, for example, that Bulgarians' bank savings are going to disappear overnight as a result of joining the euro. But some of the arguments have maybe got a little bit more to them. Bulgarian nationalists have argued, for example, that joining the euro represents a loss of sovereignty. And that is sort of true, and it sort of isn't.
There are really big and serious things that you lose the power to do if you don't have your own currency. Fundamentally, you cannot control your own interest rate anymore, which is something that you might really want to be able to do if a recession hits. And that was something that a lot of economists say would have been really helpful in southern European countries like Greece when they were trying to get out of the financial crisis.
At the same time, this is kind of technical, but Bulgaria has actually already been subject to the policies of the European Central Bank since 2020, when it joined this really fun thing called the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
KATZ LASZLO:
Really sexy name once again.
KATY LEE:
You love it. And now that it's got the euro, Bulgaria actually gets to have a say on making that policy, which you could argue is actually something that gives them more power, more sovereignty.
Apart from sovereignty, another major thing that people are worried about is that joining the euro might make inflation worse. And inflation in Bulgaria is really pretty bad right now. Food prices went up 5% year on year in November, which is more than double the average in the eurozone. So it's a really real concern that this could get even worse.
KATZ LASZLO:
Oh, yeah. The inflation argument feels particularly relevant right now. There are lots of countries that have joined the eurozone over time. Can we learn anything from them about whether all of these things are likely to happen in Bulgaria? Like, did prices go up in other countries after they joined the euro?
KATY LEE:
They did, but not long term and not in a big way. Typically less than 1%, according to economists. And that's partly because, you know, switching currency does have some costs for businesses. In countries that have previously joined the euro, we've also seen this phenomenon of shops taking advantage of the switch to round their prices up slightly. And people really remember that.
KATZ LASZLO:
I vividly remember the 100 pesetas shops, which is like where you could get all your cheap sponges and stuff. And then they went to one euro, which was like twice as much or something.
KATY LEE:
Right, exactly. And this is something that really sticks in people's minds, like in various different European countries that have joined the euro previously. Long term, it has to be said, there isn't any real evidence that joining the euro increases your inflation.
And in fact, it seems to have helped to keep inflation down in the long term across countries that use it. Although I appreciate that it really might not feel like that right now. In Bulgaria, they've put watchdogs in place to try and stop businesses from doing that. But yeah, this worry over inflation, it does come up a lot when people are asked why they're against the euro.
The final thing that comes up a lot is just how chaotic Bulgarian politics is right now. So back in December, yet another Bulgarian government fell. And I say yet another because oh my god, Bulgarian politics makes French politics look completely sane and normal. Frankly, the country has had seven elections in five years. And it looks like they're going to have another one because the most recent government has just been chased out by mass protests over corruption, which is rampant. Is it a good idea to introduce a new currency when you have a political vacuum and it's not really clear who is going to be running the country in the months to come? The president has asked the parties in parliament to try to find some kind of workable coalition. But right now, that doesn't seem very likely, which means that new elections are on the horizon.
And you know, even the outgoing government was divided on whether joining the euro was a good idea. So it doesn't feel like there is a united, strong political elite that is in place to manage this pretty big change.
KATZ LASZLO:
Well, that all sounds incredibly worrying.
KATY LEE:
It does. But the reason that I'm reasonably hopeful that this will be remembered as a good week for Bulgaria joining the euro is that the transition so far has been really pretty uneventful. Bulgaria's currency was already pegged to the euro, which means there really don't seem to have been any dramatic changes to the Bulgarian economy in the immediate term.
And there are various measures in place to try and make things feel as smooth as possible. You can actually still use the old currency until the end of the month, and shops will display prices in both currencies until the summer to help people make the mental calculation.
The other big thing that makes me feel hopeful is just how positive the attitudes are of people living in countries that have had the euro for years now. 83% of Europeans support single currency. And that number has gone up over the last couple of decades in pretty much every country, including in countries like Greece and Spain and Portugal.
KATZ LASZLO:
Wow. That's also really not common. Like almost everything, it feels like we're all 50-50 on everything. 83%, it's really rare.
KATY LEE:
The one thing that we're not 50-50 on, the euro. Who'd have thought it?
What is especially hopeful for Bulgaria is that the same kinds of demographic groups that are particularly anti-euro in Bulgaria right now, so older people, less educated people, across Europe, those are the groups that have had the biggest increases in the number of people deciding, you know what, this whole euro thing has actually worked out okay. So I think that's a good sign that maybe in the long term, the same thing could happen in Bulgaria.
I don't know. I don't want to make it sound like this is an amazing, risk-free thing that is going to make Bulgarians richer overnight. Like we all saw what happened in Europe before 2008. Like all of this money flowed from richer eurozone countries like Germany to poorer ones like Greece. And it contributed in a massive way to those countries having property bubbles. So it's a big part of why those countries experienced so much more pain during and after the financial crisis. Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in the EU, and some people are hoping that joining the euro could be some kind of magic bullet. It is pretty clear that it won't be, especially if it's not accompanied by reforms and an end to this corruption that has brought so many people out onto the streets. So yeah, it's a good week, I hope, but a week that comes with quite a lot of risks. Who has had a bad week?
KATZ LASZLO:
This week, I am giving bad week to Greek students, or at least the 308,000 of them who have lost their student status.
KATY LEE:
Oh, that's a lot of people.
KATZ LASZLO:
That is a lot of people.
On December the 31st, 2025, very festive date, the Greek government removed status for students that they considered to be inactive, which amounts to about half of the student population. And they say this is just the first step.
KATY LEE:
Oh my goodness. Okay, so this is students they consider to be inactive. I'll come to a second, I guess, about like, why they want to do this. But first of all, how did they decide who they could describe as being inactive?
KATZ LASZLO:
Yeah, so there's not a tonne of international reporting about this. But from what I can tell, it's the government who makes the rules on who is and isn't inactive. And then that is combined with the university's own records. And basically, it is all the students who are enroled in four year programmes. And according to the government haven't registered for any classes or done any exams since before 2017.
But this new policy has seen a wave of outrage. And critics say that it discriminates against students who have to work alongside their studies to pay for their lives, or who have to take care of family or friends who are ill or who have health issues themselves. What didn't help the outrage of the people with that kind of critique is that a day after the announcement, an amendment was added, that students are free to enrol in private universities, however they like, which incidentally, Greece's constitution says that universities should be public. But controversially, the current government allowed foreign universities to come and open up branches in Greece, which are private and paid for earlier in its term.
And so some people are calling it a move from the government to promote private paid for universities and weaken state universities, as well as students access to them.
KATY LEE:
Okay, this is a really interesting one. Because when you first tell me like, you know, we want to take people that haven't been to classes since like 2017 off the books, that seems kind of reasonable to me. But yeah, like as you say, there are people that presumably take breaks from their studies to go and look after relatives or because they have to work like all kinds of reasons. Why does the government want to do this? Like, why does it seem like an important thing to do right now? What is the benefit to them?
KATZ LASZLO:
Yeah, I mean, it's complicated. The main argument I've seen is that the government wants to improve the credibility of these university programmes. And the Liberal Conservative Minister of Education, Religion and Sports, Sofia Zakharaki, she argues that it's also about reducing state funding that is inflated by what the government is calling eternal students. And they argue that these people are keeping their student status without actually doing anything for decades.
They also argue that they do give second chances to students who can prove serious reasons, and that lots of people have made use of that. So as we said, people who work or who are taking care of ill family members. And according to former guest of the show, Nick Malkuzis, it's not just a battle about policy, but it's really a symbolic battle about autonomy and the purpose of tertiary education. So more broadly, critics argue that these so called eternal students don't cost anyone anything. And they deserve the right to go back to education, even after life intervenes.
Now, it was hard for me to get to the bottom of like, to what extent this policy is discriminatory. I did see a fifth year student from the Electrical Engineering University named Dimitris Daskalakis, who is on the board of the HMNY Student Association. And he told press that it was a deliberate tactic to announce these measures during academic holidays, that the government has done this before. And he argues that choosing how you spend your time, including your free time and reflecting critically on how universities operate is a fundamental part of being a student. But like, would it actually save the government any money to just cut the number of official students on the books? Like, does it have any impact on their budget in a real way? I couldn't find any concrete numbers on either government spending per student or what this mass expulsion would lead to in terms of government savings or the impact on the group who have lost student status. If you have like a student card in Greece, do you get like a tonne of benefits? Is that like a reason you might want to keep your... I did see that student status comes with various things like discounts that come with your student card, you know, like when you walk into a place and then you can go to museums for free.
And I also saw that there's a different type of welfare. So like, if you need any kind of welfare support, then you're in a stronger position if you're a student. I did have to think back to like, I couldn't find how long Greece's Prime Minister or Minister of Education took to do their own degrees, just that they studied quite extensively. But I will say, I actually moved to the Netherlands to study in large part because at the time, I was living in Spain where youth unemployment was like, 60-70%. And in the Netherlands, the government still gave this monthly stipend to students. So I'm part of this generation of students in the Netherlands who did their bachelor's when student basic income had just been cut by about half. And then it was cancelled and turned into just a debt shortly after my first degree.
And while I understand that it's like a bit outrageous to be receiving student benefits for like 15 years while going backpacking in Peru, which is definitely something that some people were doing. Some people were delayed in their degrees because of much harder things, like including international people. I remember there were, you know, people dealing with mental health issues, people dealing with really difficult situations politically happening in the countries that they were coming from. And then it was a bit hard to swallow that a lot of these policies were being written and defended by politicians in their 60s, who basically did exactly that, like they studied for an unimaginably long time, while getting this basic income from the government. For example, Mark Ritter, the former prime minister, and his minister of education, they both did their bachelor's for like seven years. And they had these other interviews where they were like, oh, I just got to reflect on democracy. And then, you know, this rolls around and they wanted to punish students who took a fourth year in their three degree university by raising tuition by 3000 euros a year.
KATY LEE:
That is so annoying.
KATZ LASZLO:
Very annoying. And I mean, it's really quite amazing that people who studied between 2015 and 2023 in the Netherlands are like 10s of 1000s of euros in debt. And the ones who studied before just aren’t.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, it's funny. I did all of my studies in the UK and all of the controversy around tuition fees for university studies in the UK. I was studying right in the midst of that. And it was really the first policy I experienced as something that like, had the power to create different classes of people just by the decision of a government.
So my brother studied just before me, he had free university studies. I was in the group that had to pay 3000 a year. And that already felt unfair, you know, like, I'm gonna graduate with debt that my brother doesn't have.
And then after me came this whole generation of people that have to pay 9000 euros a year.
KATZ LASZLO:
Oh, yeah, I remember that. That was the year after I started studying.
KATY LEE:
Right, just graduating with like, really colossal amounts of debt after that. So yeah, it was it was a strange kind of awakening for me that like, these decisions have the power to really shape our financial status in big, big ways.
KATZ LASZLO:
Yeah, it's massive. Like it knocks on now those people who have loads of debt have a much harder time getting a mortgage. So it just carries on for the rest of your life.
What I also noticed was I used to teach in a US university where obviously the education system has been like way more privatised. And I really noticed such a huge difference just teaching between the students who are having to like, work three jobs to pay for their degree and the students who came from more comfortable economic backgrounds where they could just study to the point where I started to like, feel hesitant about how much homework to give. And I talked with my mentor at the time about it that she was like, yeah, the more work you give outside of this class, the harder it is for different classes of people. So that was like a really very concrete moment where that kind of education policy was really impacting the way you can teach.
All in all, I think it's safe to say bad week for the half of the Greek students who lost their student status. And we will be reading more to see if there are any more developments we should talk about on the show. Thank you so much to our Greek partners at Euranet: Sky, as well as former guest of the show Nick Malkoutsis for helping me inform this story.
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DOMINIC KRAEMER:
This podcast is a listener supported operation. Now we do have some funding for some of that operation from this radio consortium we mentioned up top, Euranet Plus, but that only covers some specific costs that we make and it also only goes till the end of this year. So we really need listeners to say to themselves, “I like what this podcast is doing. I think I'd like to keep it going. Maybe I'll throw them a little bit of cash each month to keep the show on the air.”
Are you possibly thinking that or something like that? Am I a mind reader in 2026? If so, please go ahead and do it at patreon.com forward slash Europeans podcast. You can donate as little as four euros per month.
I hope this isn't too pushy. In 2026, I'm trying to be more clear and direct. They're my two words of the year.
KATY LEE:
You're trying to be more Dutch and less British. In other words, love that for you.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Exactly. Yeah, but like in a kind way. But I feel like maybe I'm stumbling at the first hurdle and alienating all our potential supporters by asking them to forcefully for money. Anyway,
KATZ LASZLO:
Completely unlikable.
KATY LEE:
No, too British. Don't think like that. Just be direct. Say, “Give us money, please.” The really nice thing is that loads of people did sign up to support us over the holidays.
Thank you so, so much. The amazing people we would like to give a shout out to this week are Kirills, Wadis, JK, Carol, David, Igor, Buttercup, Anastasia, Lini Pesto, Stefan, Pingelin, Jane, Benjamin, Adi, Ray, Mark, who is a longtime listener, never misses an episode. Mark, your subscription is a gift from your husband, Hans. Thanks, Hans.
And a massive thank you also to Susanna, Ruthanne, Jeroen and Tyne for increasing your donations.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Thank you all so much.
KATY LEE:
Thanks, guys.
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KATY LEE:
So this year was three days old, I think, when the United States launched an attack on Venezuela and captured its president. Trump has really wasted no time at all in getting 2026 off to a tumultuous start. You don't need us to tell you that all of this feels massive and unsettling.
We don't know what the spillover effects of what's happening in Venezuela are going to be in this part of the world and in the world at large. Is Trump going to see that he's faced basically no consequences for taking over a foreign country and go after Greenland, which is, of course, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark? Does Putin see this as giving him licence to also go around launching yet more devastating invasions after Ukraine?Does Xi Jinping do the same and think, you know what, I might just help myself to Taiwan? This seems to be the done thing right now. Honestly, I don't know. I am looking at international politics right now and feeling a bit at sea, Katz. Are you also at sea?
KATZ LASLO:
No, I'm completely on top of it. No, of course not.
KATY LEE:
You’re on dry land.
KATZ LASLO:
No, I'm feeling rudderless as you are. I think actually, like, the longer I've been reporting on Europe with you, and also, I mean, just moving around, I really have come to see how easy it is to form like a completely misinformed opinion that's actually quite harmful. And so my approach is usually now more and more to like really try and dig in and not pretend I know something about a place that I don't. But I mean, it's overwhelming, like there's so many things to dig in and have a proper understanding of.
With Venezuela in particular, as unreported as it is, so I haven't learned that much from like the news, but hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have already fled Maduro's regime and the Chavez regime before that, and come to Europe over the past, yeah, I mean, decades, really.
KATY LEE:
Yeah.
KATZ LASZLO:
So it's not something that we are completely suddenly finding ourselves connected with. It's something that's already been pretty present.
But it is one of the many things that is happening that you barely hear about in the news. And yeah, I'm also finding it incredibly difficult to keep up in a way that feels respectful.
KATY LEE:
Venezuela aside, 2026 feels like a kind of anxiety inducing year because of a bunch of other things. We are still a continent at war and a continent fearing wider war at the hands of Russia.
KATZ LASZLO:
Wider war.
KATY LEE:
Yay.
KATZ LASZLO:
Miserable.
KATY LEE:
AI is taking over everything we do. That's another fun thing to think about.
And climate change is still a thing that is happening, even though our politicians seem to be slightly distracted right now from doing anything about it.
KATZ LASZLO:
Oh, my God. I just couldn't have imagined if I think about like learning about climate change when I was a teenager that this is where we would be at this time.
Yeah. Meanwhile, in 2025, it was confirmed by various experts, including the UN, that we steamed past the once upon a time legal maximum of 1.5 degrees planet heating, which like barely made the headlines. And, you know, on many, many fronts, credibility around various human rights agreements once written in this continent is rapidly crumbling.
KATY LEE:
Yeah. I mean, suffice to say, there is a lot going on as we enter 2026. And I don't know about you, but I really need some help in making sense of what might lie ahead.
I'm not asking for predictions. I'm asking for signposts and obvious things to look out for. And one person immediately came to mind when we were thinking about who we might call on to have this conversation with us. Alberto Alemanno. He's a returning guest here at the Europeans, a familiar voice for those of you who've been listening for a long time.
Alberto is a man who wears many hats. He is a professor of EU law at Azure Business School here in Paris. He is the founder of the Good Lobby, which tries to get activists more of a say in the European policy making process. He's someone who can always be relied on to come at European politics from an angle that I haven't thought of. But he always says something that surprises me. So I can't wait to hear what he has to say. He's also someone that apparently has limitless energy because he agreed to speak to us shortly after arriving in Tokyo, where he is teaching for a month despite being horribly jet lagged.
Let's give him a ring. This interview is brought to you in collaboration with our radio partners at Euronet Plus.
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KATY LEE:
Alberto, thank you so much for joining us.
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
Always good to speak to the Europeans.
KATY LEE:
We're always very happy to have you. 2026 seems to have gotten off to a very dramatic start as far as global politics is concerned with the US removal by force of Venezuela's president. What do you make of the way that European leaders have reacted to this rather jaw dropping move of Trump's?
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
Did they react at all? One might have expected a sort of unanimous voice emerging out of this fact by saying, first of all, this is illegal. This is not the way you move forward.
I think never in modern history has Europe confronted a threat quite like this one. We were told that Brexit was existential, then the Euro crisis, then the migration wave. But if anything, truly deserves that word existential is what Europe faces in 2026.
In 2025, Europe became the enemy. And despite this incredible opportunity which is given to us, which is stemming from the Venezuela operation and the ensuing renewed threat to invade or seize Greenland, our national political leaders, they cannot speak with one voice. So this is extremely frustrating, I think, for most Europeans.
I think it's very difficult to understand how it is possible that when those red lines are clearly crossed from both European and international law perspective, our European leaders don't stand up and they don't say this red line has been crossed.
KATY LEE:
On a pragmatic note, though, are they not partly doing that, at least because everyone is focused on peace for Ukraine, and they're worried that, you know, pissing Trump off too much by saying, ‘hey, you probably shouldn't have done that’ might not be in their interest when it comes to Ukraine?
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
The calculus is clear. But in reality, this is very short termist and is also set to backfire because basically, if Europe is not able to speak with one voice when its own territorial integrity is about to be breached, then it would be too late. So we are basically compromising on basic principles on the basis of an illusion that the US is still there to defend us.
KATY LEE:
I mean, looking specifically at Greenland, how much more nervous should the events in Venezuela make us about Trump's desire to take over Greenland?
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
I think regardless of whether these threats will materialise, the only fact that a NATO country like the US is currently challenging another NATO country member like Denmark, and by ricochet, the entire European Union, per se represents a red line being crossed. Obviously, the NATO agreement and alliance would fall immediately because there will no longer be the trust needed to make it work with enormous repercussions. Basically, the message America is giving is a free pass to Russia to continue doing what it's doing in Ukraine and potentially other former satellites with the Soviet Union, but also to China, a free pass on going to Taiwan and potentially going over the little islands on the Pacific vis-a-vis Japan.
So that's the message and the new multipolar world that international relations scholars have been conceptualising for some time, a world in which we enter into a zero-sum game where one region gains some territory, and another region loses. And we are really departing from this idea of multilateralism in which we can all collaborate and cooperate. Because if we do this, everybody can gain at the same time, some, they're going to gain more, some other a bit less.
But this idea is really put into question.
KATZ LASZLO:
And what do you think should be on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's to do list in 2026?
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
So Europe could first of all, and Ursula von der Leyen should suspend the trade agreement or trade deal it concluded with America. That's something that could be done. It should start encouraging countries to sell off US debt.
It should extend membership to Greenland to become a member of the European Union. It should extend membership to Canada, because there was some possible interest there. And all these actions belongs to Ursula von der Leyen prerogatives.
She's the President of the European Commission, the only institution whose objective is to identify and promote the European public interest. And that's what I think Ursula von der Leyen's legacy will be judged against.
KATY LEE:
Volodymyr Zelensky said in his New Year's address that the current peace deal on the table was 90% ready, which feels fairly optimistic in the grand scheme of things, even as the attacks from Russia continue. How hopeful are you that Ukraine might see peace in 2026?
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
It is true that these days, we see that we are making advancement. But the real question remains, what are the security guarantees we can provide? We Europeans and others, including the UK, perhaps America can guarantee to the Ukrainians.
So will the Russian invasion of Ukraine become that precedent that will push other countries starting from the US to continue those kind of territorial breaches, or will rather become a precedent that has been contained? I think the jury is still out. We're only at the beginning of the year, but we see some developments suggesting that Ukraine is really the top priority.
KATY LEE:
We spent a lot of the last year vowing to get our act together as a continent when it comes to defence, and specifically being able to defend ourselves against further Russian attacks without American help. But yeah, we're not exactly agile right now. There is a lot to do before we can say that we are genuinely ready to fend off a Russian attack.
Are you hopeful that even with everything else going on, there are concrete things that Europe is going to do this year to get us that little bit closer to readiness, given that all of the available intelligence suggests that Russia will be capable of attacking another European country after Ukraine in just a few years from now?
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
This is certainly the first time in modern European history in which the territorial integrity of Europe is threatened, not only from the east, but also from the west. So the threshold is basically there for Europeans to start doing what they keep saying, which is to basically create the conditions for defending themselves. And yet, I don't think we've reached that threshold.
I'm getting quite dramatic here. I really think that that territorial integrity has to be breached somewhere. It could be on the east, meaning could be Finland or could be Estonia, not a Baltic country.
It could be Greenland. But unless we go there, I don't think we're going to be seeing this quantum leap that will create the conditions that have always been necessary for European leaders to give up on sovereignty and deepen their integration. And more critically, even if that particular territorial breach should occur tomorrow or after tomorrow, we have never addressed the key question, which is who is going to take the command of that form of coordination of defence that somehow will have to be triggered?
And we have realised, because in Europe we are too honest, we are self-inflicting this kind of diagnosis, and then we share it around. We even publicise it. We spent the last year telling everyone how weak we are in terms of infrastructure.
So if we're going to be attacked on the west, we're going to be struggling to bring the army from the east to the west and vice versa, because those infrastructures are not working, are simply not there. We are very good at diagnosis, but we're very bad at acting upon those kinds of analysis. And again, I think that the $6 million question for 2026 is what would it take? What has to happen?
KATZ LASZLO:
On the subject of what will it take? A lot of EU governments are gearing their defence budgets towards general disaster preparedness as well, and in particular climate disasters. And I'm wondering how you're expecting that to develop.
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
I think that's a very sensitive topic, because we have been witnessing in the past few months, a major departure from major public interest objectives. The European Union has presented over 10 omnibus regulation packages. So they are basically simplifying standards when it comes to climate, when it comes to chemicals, when it comes to pesticides.
And they are basically relaxing those standards in an incredible rollback in order to satisfy both the internal demand to unleash the European competitiveness, but also to satisfy the demand of the United States to enter the European market by complying with a less cumbersome standard. And this is basically self-defeating because Europe is giving away the only power it really has, acting together by having common standards, common policies that are working. And Europe is giving away that power in order to somehow chase this idea that we are going to be able to transfer some of those resources to a variety of industries, including the defence industries, in order to chase America and China and other emerging economies.
I don't think this is the right game for Europe to enter.
KATY LEE:
Something seems to be shifting in that the world is really talking about Europe as a unified actor. You know, there was this US national security strategy that was released at the end of last year, and it threw a lot of shade at Europe, you know, making out that we're this depraved continent that censors free speech apparently, and we've lost sense of who we are, because we've tragically let too many immigrants in. Anyway, this document slags us off as a continent. It treats us as one. And if we want to be a bit more optimistic about the state of the world, maybe it's kind of a good thing that we're being treated as one these days.
ALBERTO ALEMANNO:
I've been saying this in the past few months, that there's never been a better time to be a European, because I really feel genuinely that it's probably the first time in the past 50, 60, 70 years in which the world is looking at us as a one political entity, as a one political actor. They're treating us as Europeans, not as Germans, Poles, Swedes, Slovenians, or Spaniards, or Portuguese. But because we are European, we are a thing. Suddenly, Europe has become a thing. It has become a thing because it represents an alternative model to systems that are so different than ours. It could be China, it could be Russia, it could be America this day.
So it's paradoxical that our enemies and rivals see Europe as more threatening and powerful than the Europeans themselves. We're an incredibly wealthy region. We have been growing as much as America, despite all this data suggesting that our productivity rate is low.
Basically, America and Europe are economically equal. They are not so different. They spend 4% in defence, we spend 2% in defence. This is manageable. We can spend more and we committed to spend more. And that's what keeps me awake at night, but also gives me hope that finally, despite all these reticence of our political leaders to come together and to act and to defend, there is today a majority of European citizens who are actually unsatisfied by the state of the world.BThey are very proud of what Europe still represents today. And so we are very close to that moment in which there will be a genuine bottom-up healthy demand for pan-European actions, pan-European conversations, which are the only ones that will allow us to advance instead of holding us back as they are today. We're incredibly close.
The more Europe will be challenged, the more Europeans will feel more European.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
Alberto always gives me something fresh to think about. Like I really liked this point he made about how good Europeans are at diagnosing our weaknesses and then not necessarily acting on it.
KATZ LASZLO:
Yeah, oh man. On the subject of New Year's resolutions, I've been talking a lot about like the critique that's true that you don't want to hear with my friends around me. That felt very recognisable at a continental level.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, but at the same time, it is also really good to hear someone making a case for everything that there is to fight for, like everything we have to be proud of as Europeans, especially given the state of the world.
And I think I needed to hear that. Like, I think I focus sometimes too much on the diagnosis bit.
KATZ LASZLO:
The thing that really stuck with me in Alberto's interview is this sort of like strange thing of on the one hand, Europe feeling important on the global stage and on the other hand being like, oh, little old us, which is quite strange because we really are, you know, a collection of the richest countries in the world.
And that really stayed with me of like, surely we could be covering some of these basic needs of people with that money.
KATY LEE:
Europe needs to own it more in 2026. There's a New Year's resolution for you. Anyway, always a pleasure to have Alberto on the show. He is a really, really great person to follow on social media if you are looking for zoomed out analysis on where Europe is at and Europe's place in the world. He's on LinkedIn, he's on Blue Sky, he's on Instagram, loads of different places.
And on those platforms, he started fairly recently doing a series of videos that he calls European Question Time, 90 second clips, kind of giving his takes on where we're at. They're really worth checking out. We'll put the links in the show notes.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
I'm glad you're here, Katz, because you've been able to rescue both Dominic and me this week. Dominic, because he spent all of yesterday stuck on a bus and me, because I'm sorry to tell you, listeners, I have nothing to recommend to you this week, because I consumed zero culture over the holidays. Turns out that travelling with small children is not really that conducive to reading books or even watching television. I love television. So I'm hoping to catch up on the snowy nights to come. But in my place, what have you got to recommend for us?
KATZ LASZLO:
Yes, I've got two. I've got a fun holiday fuelled one. And then I've got a bit of a weird one.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I can't wait.
KATZ LASZLO:
I'll start with a fun one, which is a song by Sicilian icon Rosa Balistreri, who is a Sicilian woman who was born in 1927. So she died in 1990. And she is quite an interesting character.
She spent her childhood helping her alcoholic carpenter father instead of going to school. She was married to someone at 16, who was also an alcoholic who she attacked after she thought that he had gambled their only daughter's dowry away. And then she turned herself into the police because she thought she'd killed him.
But she hadn't. She had all kinds of bouts in prison and all kinds of wild stories. I really recommend that you read about her.
She left to the mainland to work as a servant. And it was there that she started her artistic career in the 60s. So she was 40 years old at her first performance.
So there's still time for us. And her voice is absolutely amazing. She's got a whole array of songs about what her friend, the author Leonardo Sciascia calls the violent, tender, bittersweet ambiguities of Sicily.
Her voice has like so many layers. And it's it's really I was blown away when I heard it. And she sings about unemployment, about hunger, about discrimination, and about the violence against women.
But she also sings about pride and dignity and indignance in Sicily. So yeah, I picked this song. It is called “Curri cavaddu miu,” which is Sicilian for “run my horse.” And there are many, many more songs that I will leave a link to in the show notes.
KATY LEE:
Sounds amazing. I can't wait to check her out.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, me too.
KATY LEE:
What's this other weirder recommendation you've got?
KATZ LASZLO:
So my second one is the absolute dream that is my Spanish dentist.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Cultural recommendations across Europe. Thanks, Katz.
KATY LEE:
This is a first for the Europeans.
KATZ LASZLO:
Exactly keeping it diverse. So this isn't very scientific. It's based on my random interactions. But as you both know, I have had a wide array of cross border medical escapades. And I just can't believe how much it varies per country.
To give some context, I knocked out my front teeth when I was seven years old, my first month living in Spain, on a very tooth coloured marble floor. And what that means is I now have porcelain implants installed by a dentist in Barcelona. And I've been there since I was 18.
So I kind of forgot they were there. But at the end of last year, I was eating a very powerful organic carrot. And I knocked one of them out.
This was in Amsterdam. And so I thought, Oh, God, and the next morning, I spent like four hours bouncing between my Dutch dentist, my GP, a dental surgery department and an implantologist. And they were all just like pointing at each other and almost acting indignantly.
Like, Why would you expect me to know such things? I can't help you. I don't know who can. Leave me alone. You must go to this other office.” To the point where I just put the dental surgery secretary on the line inside my GP's office. And then they started arguing with each other.
And my GP was like, this is completely mad. Like, obviously, she hasn't been registered at your practise. But she's sitting here with a tooth in her hand, like it can't be true that she has to wait here for three months for an intake.
And the dentist was just like, we can't say how long it'll be until the intake, it'll be a few months, it'll cost like 2000 euros.
KATY LEE:
2000 euros.
KATZ LASZLO:
This is completely insane. So my GP at this point was quite sympathetic. But I walked out and I started crying. And I called my Spanish dentist. And they were just like, picked up one second, like no way, no way whatsoever. And they were just like, hi, dear. Oh, that sounds stressful. We can see you tomorrow at 10, which was a Saturday. It'll be about 100 euros. Just send us the x ray over WhatsApp to confirm. And it was like a two minute call. I mean, admittedly, WhatsApp not the best privacy, but I just couldn't believe it.
So I decided to make a fun trip out of it. And I got in my van and I drove all the way to Barcelona via some very nice nature parks in France. And then my Spanish dentist reinstalled my tooth for like 100 euros within two days.
Problem solved. They even massaged my face with rosemary oil.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Stop.
KATZ LASZLO:
You can't make this up. So I'm not saying that this is representative of every Dutch dentist and every Spanish dentist. But it was a completely mad contrast. I had a similarly excellent experience with an Italian doctor on this trip.
And it will be weird to tell you to go to my particular dentist in Spain for privacy reasons. And also because I know he really wants to retire, which is devastating news for me, but great for him.
But if you're looking for cultural inspiration, and you are lucky enough to be in a more affordable country, I highly recommend you just go to the dentist or something just like any kind of fundamental infrastructure just to see what happens and report back to us.
KATY LEE:
Going to the dentist as a cultural recommendation. This is unheard of.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I can't wait to read your book about all the medical tourism you're doing across Europe.
KATY LEE:
That is a good book.
KATZ LASZLO:
Medical immigration, I would say. It's not tourism.
KATY LEE:
Well, thank you for that, Katz, most unusual recommendation. Dominic, you got anything more normal for us?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes, I do have a more kind of more normal recommendation. I've been listening to a lot of music lately, as I always do. But there's one fairly significant change in how I'm listening.
For various reasons, I decided it was time to make a slightly momentous move and I cancelled my Spotify subscription. I'm now listening to all my music on a French-based streaming platform called Qobuz.
KATY LEE:
Okay, this is an interesting thing, because we are also moving to what we have been calling Qoobuz. Is it Qobuz? I should know this. I'm French.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I looked it up. And apparently, yeah, it's Q-O-B-U-Z. But apparently it should be pronounced K-O-B-O-O-Z-E. It's an instrument.
KATY LEE:
Oh, well, so how is it? Because I've literally been planning this based on my friend saying, you should do this. You're now friend number two doing it. Is it good?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes, it is really good. And I should stress that this is not sponsored content. Although if anyone at Qobuz is listening and would like to place an ad on the Europeans, please be my guest.
KATY LEE:
Hi.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But yeah, it works really well. It's just as good as Spotify. I don't miss Spotify at all.
And just to say this up front, I really don't want to come across as if I'm criticising anyone who is still using Spotify. I do have some beef with Spotify, but I do not have beef with Spotify users. You should all do you.
KATZ LASZLO:
And what is your beef with Spotify? What was like the motivating factor that made you cross?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, yeah, it's a good question. Because on the plus side, Spotify is a European tech giant, one of the few, which I do instinctively like. It was founded in Stockholm, although it's now legally based in Luxembourg, for reasons one can only imagine.
But my main issue is that Spotify pays artists very badly, worse than almost all of its competitors. From what I've seen, I actually came across an Instagram post from a musician that compared all the different music streaming platforms in various different ways. And I was shocked by how low Spotify's per stream payments are.
That same post also flagged which platforms have donated to Trump via his inauguration or campaign, and which ones host ads from ICE in the US. So yeah, there's a whole constellation of red flags because Spotify had green ticks under both those categories. I can share a link in the show notes to that Instagram post if anyone else wants to do that comparison themselves.
So I ended up using Qobuz partly because they pay artists significantly more, somewhere in the region of three to six times more per stream than Spotify. What had held me back before was the thought of losing all my playlists. But they actually have a service that lets you transfer everything over with just a few clicks.
It's so simple. And it is slightly more expensive than Spotify, like by a euro or two extra per month. But for me, that feels like a reasonable bit of extra money to spend if it means that artists are actually getting paid more.
KATZ LASZLO:
I mean, it does make sense that if you pay the artist more than the price will go up, right?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, that's true. Although I wonder how much Spotify are just keeping as profit. Anyway, have a think about it. I'm happy with the decision I made. It doesn't have a library of podcasts like Spotify. So if you're...
KATZ LASZLO:
That was my big question.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, if you're a Spotify podcast listener, you'd have to go somewhere like Pocket Cast, Castbox or Podbean. Actually, we have loads of new listeners from Castbox. Hi, Castbox, because we got featured there. Hope you're all doing well.
KATY LEE:
Hi, Castbox people.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Anyway, give it a go. I'm going to try and gradually move more towards European based and more ethically run tech companies over this year. It's another of my New Year's resolutions along with being clear and direct. Let's see how far I get. I'm taking baby steps.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
For my happy ending, I'm taking us to the Czech Republic, where a new decree came into force at the start of this year, meaning that every primary and secondary school has to provide free menstrual products in at least half of their bathrooms. This nationwide scheme follows various regional initiatives in the Czech Republic, and it will go some way towards helping the problem of period poverty.
But it's more than that, actually. It's a glimpse of light that it's possible to change the culture around how we treat menstruation in society. Many people believe that sanitary pads, tampons and the like should be as readily available as toilet paper.
I have to say, I agree. It's not like women choose to menstruate. It's a natural phenomenon that roughly half of the human population experiences. Why should this half of the population have an extra financial burden because of their periods?
KATZ LASZLO:
My thoughts entirely, Dominic.
KATY LEE:
We agree.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Good. Anyway, this is good news that will hopefully create less stress, pressure or anxiety around menstruation for school kids in the Czech Republic.
And it's not even that expensive. According to the former Czech health minister who brought this bill in, it should cost the equivalent of around 900 euros for primary schools each year to fund and 1100 euros for secondary schools. Not really that much when you think about their overall budgets.
And it's worth pointing out that Czech Republic isn't the first country with a scheme like this. Scotland and Catalonia have two of the most wide ranging initiatives, actually more wide ranging than this one. So well done to the Czech Republic for joining this growing movement for free period products.
KATZ LASZLO:
It's amazing how much that conversation has changed in our lifetimes.
KATY LEE:
It really is.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
We will be back next week. I really want this podcast to be a source of comfort in uncertain times, a port in a storm. But having said that, we are going to be releasing next week's podcast on Friday rather than Thursday, right?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, sorry. That's my fault.
KATY LEE:
We are rolling with these tumultuous times. Blame Dominic's singing schedule. This week's podcast was produced by Katz Laszlo in Sicily. Thanks, Katz.
KATZ LASZLO:
Yay.
KATY LEE:
And Morgan Childs in Prague. Thanks, Morgan. Until next Friday's podcast, come and catch us on the internet. We are on Instagram, Blue Sky, YouTube and Europe's very own Mastodon.
And we have a fantastic new weekly newsletter called Good Week, Bad Week. You should check it out. The link is in the show notes.
We'll be back next week with more attempts to understand the chaos. Ciao.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
S bohem!
KATY LEE:
See you then.
Inspiration Station recommendations:
Rosa Balistreri’s song “Curri Cavaddu Miu”
The French-owned streaming platform Qobuz, which offers a potentially more ethical alternative to Spotify.
PLUS: going to the dentist in other countries (makes more sense if you listen in).
Other resources for this episode:
“Hitting record highs: unpacking support for the euro” – European Central Bank, 2025
Alberto’s excellent and information-rich Instagram, LinkedIn, and BlueSky accounts
“Rosa Balistreri” – Enciclopedia Delle Donne
Instagram post by @patriciana comparing the ethics, content, and costs of various streaming platforms
Producer
Katz Laszlo and Morgan Childs
Mixing and mastering
Wojciech Oleksiak
Music
Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
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