A European social network for the WTF era

29 Jan

By popular demand (and thanks to Dominic’s singing schedule), our silly, brilliant Luxembourger-in-chief Nina Lamparski is back in the hosting chair – and she’s brought her longstanding grudge against Elon Musk with her. Musk has made a real dog’s breakfast of that app we all used to like, and his AI assistant, Grok, seems designed for maximum awfulness. Can the European-made social media platform “W” provide an ethical alternative to X? We break it down. Plus: 10 European countries have committed to building a power grid in the North Sea that would become the world’s largest reservoir of clean energy, an ambitious move that happens to come on the back of some annoying comments from the American president at Davos. Next time someone calls you a loser, just give ‘em the windmill.

Our guest this week is Katja Diehl, Hamburg-based mobility activist, author, and host of the German-language podcast She Drives Mobility. If you, too, believe that you should have the right to a life without cars, you’ll enjoy hearing from her just as much as we did.

SEND US YOUR Qs! WE’LL GIVE YOU OUR As! Next week we’re recording a special episode of The Europeans, and we’re seeking listener questions. Got something you’re dying to know about? Drop us a line – or better yet, a voice memo – at hello@europeanspodcast.com.

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KATY LEE
Welcome back to The Europeans. It's a podcast for people who like Europe, people who live in Europe, and people who are just sort of vaguely interested in what happens in Europe. My name is Katy Lee, I live in Paris. And my usual partner in crime, Dominic Kraemer, is away doing his actual job of singing today. So as a special treat, I have with me a very good friend, someone who's actually stood in for me in the past as a host of this podcast, when I've been busy ejecting babies from my body. So we're doing this for the first time together today. It is my good friend and favourite person from Luxembourg, Nina Lamparski. Hi, Nina!

NINA LAMPARSKI
Hi, Katy!

KATY LEE
So nice to have you here.

NINA LAMPARSKI
It is so lovely to be back. And it is very strange because it is the very first time or so that you and I are indeed recording together. I'm used to Dominic sitting opposite me or seeing him on the screen.

KATY LEE
And now here you are, in flesh. Friends for what, 10-12 years now, podcasting for the first time.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Oh, Jesus, the show hasn't even started and you're already making me feel ancient. Thanks, Katy. It's quite funny too, because when you put us together, we look like the French flag because you've got a red top and I've got a dark blue and white outfit on.

KATY LEE
Very appropriate for us two Parisians.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yes. But yeah, I'm good. Otherwise, I'll just, you know, last time I was here, I had a massive elbow pain.

KATY LEE
Oh, yeah. How's that going?

NINA LAMPARSKI
I was sharing my experience that day of my plasma injection. And I'm pleased to say that the injection did not help one bit. I'm still in agony and I'm actually getting surgery. So I'm quite happy. Yeah, but you know, it's good. It means there's going to be a solution. So I'm very solutions focused. So yes, surgery next month. But nothing would obviously keep me from coming here and recording with you. And so yeah, how have you been? I hope not in pain. I hope all has been well.

KATY LEE
I'm fine, yeah, thanks. Just sitting here with, I'm actually drinking out of my toddler's sippy cup, which doesn't look professional. But that was all I was able to find to bring myself water. So very much feeling like a working parent this morning.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Is it water though? Or are you just using the sippy cup to hide some gin?

KATY LEE
Pure vodka. Before we get stuck into this week's episode, a public service announcement. Next week, the entire team of The Europeans is descending upon Paris for our annual get-together. It's the time of the year where I actually get to see how tall everyone is in real life at The Europeans because they're not just little squares on my laptop screen. And they are crazy tall. Everyone's coming to do some brainstorming for the year ahead. And to see Nina, of course, you're all coming to my place for dinner.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I don't know if they're crazy tall or you're just very short.

KATY LEE
Not that short. I'm medium height. Anyway, when we're not having dinner and probably having a few too many glasses of wine, Dominic and Katz and Wojciech and Morgan will be joining me in the studio to record a Q&A episode. It's a kind of behind the scenes episode of this podcast. We're going to be answering all of your questions about how we make The Europeans, where we see the show going in the future. You can ask us serious questions. You can ask us silly questions. We will try to get through as many listener questions as possible. So if there's anything you've ever wanted to ask us, now is the time. We would love to hear from you. And we would especially love to hear your questions in voice memo form so that we can hear your voices on the podcast. But you can write them too if you're shy, whether it's in voice form or in text form. Email us your questions to hello@europeanspodcast.com.

NINA LAMPARSKI
And so what's coming up now, Katy?

KATY LEE
Well, first up, you and I are going to do Good Week, Bad Week, as always. But then we've got a very intriguing guest. This is something you'll think is interesting. Wojciech and I spoke to someone who has made it her life's work to campaign against car-centric culture in Germany, of all places.

NINA LAMPARSKI
And as we know, I am the car expert, having covered electric cars on this programme before.

KATY LEE
You're our auto expert.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Auto, jawohl, Autofahren.

KATY LEE
But yeah, she's in Germany of all places, the European capital of car addiction. We will be hearing from Katja Diehl, activist, author, podcaster, about what it really means for us to live in a society built around car use and how we can change it. But first up, it is time for Good Week, Bad Week.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
So, Nina, who has had a bad week?

NINA LAMPARSKI
Well, this is the segment that is brought to you in collaboration with our radio friends at Euranet Plus. Before I go on, I'd like to issue a brief disclaimer to say that I'm not holding a personal grudge against this person I'm about to mention. But somehow they just keep returning to the news. So today's bad week goes once again to my old pal Elon Musk, who finds himself yet again in hot, possibly even boiling water in Europe despite the wintry temperatures.

KATY LEE
Didn't you give Elon Musk bad week last time you were here?

NINA LAMPARSKI
I may have. It's not my fault.

KATY LEE
It's becoming a tradition.

NINA LAMPARSKI
It's not a witch hunt. He just, you know, happens to keep doing things that, you know, that keep riling Europe up. So for starters, Brussels this week has opened yet another investigation into X, the social media network owned by Musk. This time because Grok, the dodgy AI chatbot that lives on X, has been busy creating fake sexualised images of women and children.

KATY LEE
Awful, awful, awful.

NINA LAMPARSKI
So obviously, that's not great news for Musk. But there's another, possibly even bigger threat looming on the horizon. And that's a brand new European social media network called W.

KATY LEE
Okay, I am so excited to hear about this, because when you told me about this very briefly the other day, I just hadn't heard anything about it. And I still haven't really. But I mean, really? Another social media platform? Like, already at the end of every podcast, I have to spend about 11 minutes saying we are on Bluesky, we are on Instagram. Do we have to add another one? Like, I guess if we do have to have another one, I'm glad it's European, at least. But okay, what is it? W, it's called, right? Like, what is this thing?

NINA LAMPARSKI
So it's called W. And it's being promoted as a true European alternative to X. So that means it's built in Europe, hosted in Europe, governed by European rules, and importantly, not owned by Elon or any of the other US tech bros. And the aim of W is to basically fight disinformation instead of spreading it, which we know other platforms are really good at, to protect our data, another key point within the European space, and also to make sure that the users are real people, not anonymous or fake accounts. So that means you'll have to provide a valid ID in order to sign up, which is very different from X, because X allows you and even encourages you to join without proving who you are. For Musk, the right to stay anonymous basically protects free speech. I'd argue that it just protects horrible people saying horrible things online.

KATY LEE
Yeah, I mean, that'll seem to be how it works in practice. I'm curious, does the W actually stand for anything? Or is this just like…

NINA LAMPARSKI
Random?

KATY LEE
Well, is it just like a conscious effort to say like, this is kind of like X, but it's different?

NINA LAMPARSKI
I don't know what the origin story behind it is. But the current version is that W stands for we, as in community, you and I, you know, W-E. But if you look at the letter, it's also obviously made up of two individual Vs. And they stand for ‘values’ on the one hand, so things like data protection, online safety, so European values, not Musk values, and ‘verified’, as in online identity checks.

KATY LEE
I bet that Elon won't love the fact that W comes before X in the alphabet. You've lost that race. But I mean, all of this sounds really good. I like what I'm hearing so far. Like, where can I sign up? Is it literally w.com?

NINA LAMPARSKI
Not quite yet. So you'll have to wait a little bit longer because W won't actually go live till later this year. But its launch was announced last week, quite sneakily, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

KATY LEE
Oh, maybe that's why I didn't hear about it. Because a lot of other stuff happened at Davos too.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Oh, I thought, is it because you weren't invited?

KATY LEE
Not this year, no. Still waiting for my invite for next year.

NINA LAMPARSKI
But yeah, so for those who may not be familiar with Davos, so it's the swanky Swiss ski resort which fills up once a year with political bigwigs, CEOs and tech billionaires to discuss global issues, often issues they have caused themselves, I'd like to add. So it's this VIP Mecca where serious power and serious cash mingle. And it's the ideal place to unveil your tech project. And I mean, if you're going to launch a platform to fix democracy, you might as well do it surrounded by private jets and fondue.

KATY LEE
What a combo. Launching it at Davos though, that does seem to suggest that the people behind this have some serious connections. Like who are the people behind this new social network? Are they like very fancy tech people?

NINA LAMPARSKI
So there is a tech connection. The CEO is a Swiss woman called Anna Zeiter. And Anna is a privacy and data protection expert who spent more than a decade dealing with AI and user data at eBay. One of the world's largest marketplaces, you know, where you can just buy and sell pretty much everything.

KATY LEE
I know eBay.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yes. So have you ever sold anything on there? Are you selling anything?

KATY LEE
Yeah, I had a little sideline in just getting rid of crap in my house and selling on eBay a few years ago. I haven't put the effort into it lately though.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Did you run an auction? Were you like waiting to see if people were going to outbid each other?

KATY LEE
Buy my lamp! Yeah, I can't say I made a huge amount of money there, but I'm quite fond of eBay. It's like, you know, old school internet.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yeah, and there's not much evil, right? As far as I can tell, like in terms of like compared to other platforms, we just don't hear many mean things. And I guess the good thing about Anna, I mean, it's fair to assume, I don't know if it's a good thing, but it's fair to assume that Anna should know a thing or two about online platforms and what goes wrong when they're not carefully designed. So on the day when W was actually launched in Davos, Anna actually also published a very short mission statement on her LinkedIn page explaining why she decided to create W. I say she, because she's currently sort of the face of this new platform, but there may be other people involved. So far, it's Anna who's spoken out publicly. So she wrote that across Europe and beyond, systemic disinformation is eroding public trust and weakening democratic decision making. And that's why she says there's an urgent need for a truly European social media network.

KATY LEE
It all sounds very like nice and idealistic. But one obvious question, like, is there enough money to launch this thing? Like making a social network is expensive. Where is the money going to come from to make this a reality?

NINA LAMPARSKI
That's a very good question. The details about financial fundings remain quite opaque at the moment. So it's also because, as you said, no one really knew that this was coming. Well certainly not sort of the larger public. What we do know at this stage is that W is legally owned by a Swedish climate action platform called We Don't Have Time. So I looked into them and they were created a few years ago. And originally it was sort of a climate activist tech startup. And it's grown into this online community of people sharing their concerns about the environment. You can also rate companies, sustainability efforts and so on. So it seems legit. And it also looks like it's private money funding W therefore, and not necessarily Brussels paying for it at this stage. There is an advisory board made up of former ministers and business figures, mostly from Sweden. But it does sound like W wants to sell itself as an independent European project, at least for now. The people working for W, so the developers, policy people, product designers, they're all scattered across Europe, but their office is planned in Berlin and in Paris.

KATY LEE
Oh, we can go and work there.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Maybe if they pay me enough, I'll go. Sorry, no, of course I wouldn't because I'm a very, what's the word, very ethical journalist.

KATY LEE
Sure.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I am!

KATY LEE
But for the right pay cheque, W, come knocking.

NINA LAMPARSKI
So yeah, so the idea is that this isn't just a platform for Europeans, but one that's actually built by Europeans. And that also means that the data would be kept within Europe and not shipped outside of Europe.

KATY LEE
I like that. You say it's not being funded by Brussels in any way.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Not as far as we know.

KATY LEE
Yet. Is anyone in Brussels actually taking this idea seriously, though?

NINA LAMPARSKI
So a day before W was launched in Davos, more than 50 members of the European Parliament, exactly, I think it was 54, publicly called for European alternatives to X. They said that X wasn't a safe or balanced space anymore, especially for women. So the timing of this public statement is a little bit conspicuous, shall we say? And I think it's, you know, fair to assume that this project is definitely on Brussels' radar, even more so with the latest Grok scandal.

KATY LEE
Yes, back to Grok. Like, it is just so gross, this whole thing about it, like, inventing sexualised, disgusting sexualised images of women and children. Can you tell us a bit more about what it's actually been doing?

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yeah, so the really scary part is just how easy it is to create these fake sexualised images of real people. All you have to do is you upload a photo, you write a simple instruction to Grok, like ‘put her in a bikini’. And within seconds, the image is altered to make the person in it look like they're almost naked. And so according to a watchdog, Grok has produced around 3 million of these sexualised images just within days. And some of them include minors. So obviously, this has created huge concern in Brussels, which now says that Grok and X, and therefore Musk, may have broken the rules of the Digital Services Act. I do hope that our listeners by now know the DSA. I've spoken about it several times on this programme. But let me just remind you that this is the EU's landmark law that regulates big online platforms. It was first adopted in 2022, and is now being rolled out. So, X, this is obviously not the first time that X is in trouble. X was already fined 120 million euros in December for breaching transparency rules under the Act. And I mean, we know that Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, they all hate the strict rules that the EU is implementing. And when you look at it like that, W kind of makes sense because Europe and America are pulling in totally opposite directions.

KATY LEE
But realistically, do you think people are actually going to jump ship and leave X for this new platform? I mean, like, I don't go on X very often these days. I stopped posting because Musk makes me feel ill, but also because it didn't feel like there was anyone left to talk to. However, I did log in the other day for the first time in ages, and I was really surprised by how many people still are there.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Well, actually, you touch upon a very excellent point. Historically, we know that it's very hard to get people to leave a platform where they've spent years building an audience.

KATY LEE
Right.

NINA LAMPARSKI
So basically, when you switch to a rival, it's not just like downloading a new app, you actually have to switch networks. And that means you have to start from scratch rebuilding those audiences. So previous attempts like Bluesky, the social media network launched by Jack Dorsey, who used to own X when it was still called Twitter and seemed a little bit less vile – so Bluesky took off at first, but then things trailed off.

KATY LEE
Yeah, it's gone a bit flat.

NINA LAMPARSKI
It has gone a bit flat. And also the other issue with changing platforms and going to W is that some users might actually be reluctant to hand over their ID for verification precisely because they want to protect their data. And we all know of many hacking instances in the, you know, last few years, where millions of personal infos have been leaked. But then in light of current events like Trump threatening to invade Greenland, leaving X may become a political or even philosophical choice for Europeans. It may not just be about audiences anymore. It may be about something much bigger than that actually taking a stance. So personally, I like W because it's also the first letter of WTF, which pretty much sums up the times we're living in.

KATY LEE
I am so curious to see if this takes off. I mean, yeah, we've tried like a few places, Threads was supposed to be a Twitter replacement. It's absolutely bombed. We do also have Mastodon, which is European, but it's, you know, it's not very mainstream. Which is fine –

NINA LAMPARSKI
And there's another app called Monnett or something. It's a Luxembourgish app, a Luxembourg-based app. Yes, I just signed up to it this week or last week. This week? Last week? I don't know. What day is this? What year are we in?

KATY LEE
What is time?

NINA LAMPARSKI
What is time? And yeah, it sort of sells itself as an alternative to Instagram. And I have to say, it is really… you know when people go, ‘Oh, God, the EU, Brussels, it's so boring’. Well, I don't think this app should be promoted as something European because it really, truly isn't great. It's like Instagram without the gloss. So it's just someone's pretzel. I mean, that sounds weird. You know, it's just, it really, yeah, it's not shiny and it's not interesting. Basically, the content just isn't interesting. So it just looks like old civil servants trying to be online. It's not them, but it's just…

KATY LEE
Showing their pretzels. If you know what I mean.

NINA LAMPARSKI
We got there in the end, a little bit of, you know, innuendo.

KATY LEE
In what world is that an innuendo? Yeah, I mean, it feels like we're living through a really weird time in social media when nobody knows where we're supposed to be. Nowhere is quite working. I am a little bit hesitant to like be super enthusiastic about things that are just trying to be Twitter, trying to be Instagram, trying to be versions of the things that we already have. And I'm just wondering if we need to just like stop trying to recreate versions of those things without the Nazis. And just maybe we should be doing something completely different. I don't know what that thing is. If I did, I would also be at Davos launching it.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Live off the grid. Just switch it all off.

KATY LEE
Well, maybe that's the solution.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Let's just switch off the internet.

KATY LEE
There we go.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Although then there wouldn't be a podcast. There wouldn't be The Europeans.

KATY LEE
That would be disastrous. Please stay on social media, everyone.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Please do. Don't listen to me. So, Katy, tell me, who's been having a good week?

KATY LEE
I am going to say it's been a good week for wind power in Europe, because...

NINA LAMPARSKI
It's so hard not to crack a joke.

KATY LEE
You want to make a joke about wind? How old are you? Two professional journalists making a podcast. Serious faces, Nina. It's been a good week for wind power in Europe, because 10 European countries signed a deal this week that should see them come together and create a tonne of wind farms off their coasts in the North Sea. These countries are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and you'll be very pleased to hear this mentioned for about the 15th time already this podcast, Luxembourg.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Of course, Luxembourg had to be in on it. But also, are you sure it's Iceland and not Greenland?

KATY LEE
Yeah, same, same. It's fine. I mean, Luxembourg. Last time I checked, Luxembourg wasn't on the North Sea, or indeed, any sea. So I love that you guys have just invited yourselves along for this project.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yeah, but you know what? Luxembourg probably has got the money.

KATY LEE
Oh, that's what this will be about.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Got our money at the table.

KATY LEE
Otherwise... You know, you're like, you're just below Belgium. You know, it's nearly on the North Sea.

NINA LAMPARSKI
It's basically one country, Benelux, you know.

KATY LEE
Anyway, you guys are not that far away from the North Sea, I guess. Ireland isn't really on the North Sea either, but they're joining in, you know, the more the merrier. It is especially satisfying to see European countries doing this, announcing this big scale collaboration on wind farms, because of what Trump said about wind power at Davos. Did you hear that particular nugget?

NINA LAMPARSKI
No, I mean, he said so many things, but remind me.

KATY LEE
Yeah, I'm not surprised that you didn't catch this one amongst everything else. But he said, quote, there are windmills all over Europe. There are windmills all over the place, and they are losers. One thing I've noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses, and the worse that country is doing.

NINA LAMPARSKI
But he hates them, doesn't he? Are we talking about windmills like the turbines?

KATY LEE
Yeah.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yeah, he hates them because he says that, you know, he hates them for his golf courses. He doesn't like them in the background of his swanky...

KATY LEE
Ruining the view.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I mean, I'm, you know, we're here for the windmills.

KATY LEE
We are. And this also feels like quite sassy timing on the part of these European countries to be saying, you know what, we're going to do a really big windmill project. And let's see who the losers are when we're done.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Well, that's very satisfying. I agree. And it's also, yeah, it's nice to see the North Sea becoming a place where we're producing more and more wind power. Because obviously, historically, it's been a place where we've pulled out a lot of oil and gas.

KATY LEE
Well, indeed. Yeah. I mean, North Sea oil and gas is something that countries along this coast have made quite a lot of money out of over the last half century, notably Denmark, Norway, the UK and the Netherlands. But of course, you know, as we've increasingly realised that maybe it isn't such a great idea to get all of our energy from stuff that is killing the planet, there has been a shift in where the money gets invested from oil and gas projects in the North Sea to trying to finance wind projects off this coast. Now, I would love to tell you that there is no longer any money going into developing oil and gas in the North Sea these days. It really isn't the case, unfortunately, particularly in Norway. But there does seem to be this realisation that, oh, hang on a second, the North Sea is like really windy. Maybe we can do something with that. Now, there's not that much detail on what this newly announced plan is going to involve. So I cannot tell you, for example, it's going to mean 10 wind turbines going here, 20 wind turbines going there. I can't tell you what is in place to do this in a way that's respectful of the environment, which is, of course, always an issue when we're building wind farms. These are still very, very hypothetical wind farms. What we've got from these governments is really more of a pledge to help make the necessary investments happen than to actually put up all of the money needed themselves. What I can tell you is that the eventual goal is to provide 100 gigawatts of offshore wind power with these projects. And that is really quite a lot. My very non-expert Googling of lots of better informed people's work on this would lead me to believe that 100 gigawatts could comfortably cover more than half of the energy currently needed to run annually all of the households in the EU in terms of electricity. I'm not talking about our total energy use as Europeans, like businesses and transport and everything.

NINA LAMPARSKI
And AI.

KATY LEE
And AI. Oh, God, definitely not that. Just, you know, what Europeans are using at home to make our dinner, etc. But still, that's a really serious amount of energy that we're talking about.

NINA LAMPARSKI
That's really impressive. And are all these wind farms going to be jointly owned by these countries or something? Or is it just that all of these countries side by side are saying, we promise to open lots of wind farms?

KATY LEE
It's something more like the latter. They wouldn't be collectively owned wind farms. But there is one detail about the plans that I think is quite interesting. This is super nerdy, but the idea is to make wind farms that are directly connected to more than one country, using these things called interconnectors, which like these like big fat cables running under the sea. And what this would mean is that if it is a super windy day in one corner of the sea, and I don't know, like a wind farm off Denmark creates a huge amount of energy that day, way more than Denmark needs, it would be super easy to send some of this cheap, abundant electricity to another country which isn't so windy that day. Now, we already actually use these interconnector thingies in the renewable energy industry, they do already exist. And a lot of the time they do bring down the overall cost of our electricity and make the market more stable by allowing us to buy this excess energy from each other. There is some complaining that interconnectors sometimes make the price go up. Because like, let's say you are the boss of one of these new wind farms that we're going to build, and lots of people want all of your excess energy on this day when it's windy for you and no one else, you are going to be able to sell that electricity to the highest bidder. So there might be some circumstances in which this leads to higher prices. But broadly, it is thought that having a bunch of new wind farms with interconnectors so that we can get this electricity easily from country to country, that is thought to be something that should make our electricity cheaper in the long term.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I really enjoy how you say interconnectors. That's just how people, that's just how it should be known, like a brand sound.

KATY LEE
You have to say it with that voice.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Interconnectors. So I guess, listening to you, I guess the other good thing about building all these European wind farms apart from cheaper energy for you and me, which is always nice, is not having to rely on other countries so much that we're buying oil and gas from. And we know it's all about independence at the moment.

KATY LEE
Isn't it just? We've been talking a lot about defence independence lately and how Europe needs to be able to defend itself militarily without American help these days. But it's actually a really interesting time to be talking about Europe's energy independence, because everyone worked so hard to wean ourselves off Russian fossil fuels after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And we can't say that we've done that entirely. There are still lots of customers for Russian fossil fuels here in the EU. Our own country of France is one of them. But look, you know, before the full-scale invasion, the EU got 45% of its gas from Russia. That is now down lower than a fifth. We got a quarter of our oil from Russia. That is now down to, like, just a few percent. However, something that I don't think we're talking about nearly enough at the moment is how, in place of that reliance on Russian fossil fuels, Europe has ever so quietly been growing more and more reliant on American gas. We are now importing four times as much liquefied natural gas from the United States as we were before we started cutting off the Russian tap.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Oh, that doesn't make me feel comfortable.

KATY LEE
Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but there's this crazy person in charge of the United States right now.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Oh, really? Elon Musk?

KATY LEE
Well, in some ways, Nina, in some ways. But like, how is being reliant on the US for energy needs any better than being reliant on Russia for energy needs?

NINA LAMPARSKI
Hear hear.

KATY LEE
I mean, I think the answer is that three years ago it did look better because we had this very comfy long-term friendship with the US. But yeah, things have changed a bit. But yes, anything that means that we don't have to buy our energy from deeply unstable tyrants seems good to me. And it also seems good if we can produce that energy in a way that isn't quite so lethal for the planet.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I agree with you, Katy. But as is often the case with these great projects, presumably it's going to be a while before any of these new hypothetical wind farms actually become a reality, though.

KATY LEE
It is. This is very much a promise to build wind farms rather than a concrete plan. And actually, to give you the full context, these countries around the North Sea have actually made this promise because they're falling behind on a previous promise to build wind farms.

NINA LAMPARSKI
How European.

KATY LEE
Yeah, extremely European. So back in 2023, these countries promised that by 2050, they would jointly have enough wind farms in the North Sea to produce 300 gigawatts. But we've been lagging behind. The wind sector has actually been flagging a bit across Europe. The existing infrastructure is struggling. There aren't as many companies waiting to snap up projects as governments would like. So this is partly about trying to give some momentum to reaching this big 2050 goal by looking at the more medium term. So the 2030s, basically. And in that decade, which is actually looking really disturbingly close now, how is it 2026 already? Anyway, in the 2030s, the pledge is that they will add 15 gigawatts of capacity a year, which is currently enough to provide electricity for maybe like 15 million homes for a year. There's also a couple of like admin-y, regulatory things that these governments have promised to do that should make investing in wind like more attractive and less risky. Before I wrap up this good week, I want to make this a doubly good week by flagging up a really promising report that came out last week. According to the researchers at Ember, which is a think tank that works on energy, last year was the year where the EU finally produced more energy of its own from wind and solar than it did from fossil fuels.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Really? That's incredible.

KATY LEE
Yeah. So 29% of the energy we generated ourselves was from fossil fuels and 30%, so 1% more – just edging ahead – just edging ahead was from wind and solar. So a tiny, tiny bit more. But that is worth celebrating. I mean, look, like I say, there is plenty to criticise about the speed at which we are able to think clearly about what's in our long-term interest. We are still buying Russian fossil fuels in Europe. We are still investing loads of money in the means of extracting fossil fuels. We are still buying a ton of American gas. But I'm going to take comfort in that tiny 1% of extra energy that came from wind and solar.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I was going to say, this is dangerously veering towards a bad week.

KATY LEE
No, no, no, no, no, no. Grab it back.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Let's blow back. Let's be blown back to the good side.

KATY LEE
By the winds. This is a good week because it shows, you know, I think this little tiny 1% that we are going in the right direction in a lot of ways, even if we could be moving a heck of a lot faster and doing less to sabotage ourselves.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE

In these slightly apocalyptic times, I'm really quite moved by people's willingness to part with their money each month to keep this podcast going. We only exist because people pay voluntarily to keep us in business. You know, you can download this podcast for free. You can listen to it for free. You can enjoy it for free. And yet an amazing number of people have this instinctive understanding that, you know, the things that we love in the world only exist if we support them. And that is truer than ever for tiny little independent media outlets like our own. We are lucky here at The Europeans to have some grant funding this year. That grant is up at the end of the year, and we have zero clue whether it's going to be renewed or not. So all of that talk about independence, it also applies to us. We really need to get this podcast to the point where it can survive entirely funded by its listeners, accountable only to you guys. Can you help us get there? If enough people chip in just a few bucks a month, we are daring to dream that by the end of the year, we might just be there. And some very, very generous people signed up this week to help us do that. Who are they, Nina?

NINA LAMPARSKI
So we'd like to thank Louise, John, Amanda, Chris, Katie, and Mojca, who increased her support, which is fantastic. Thank you, Mojca.

KATY LEE
Thank you all so, so much. If you're listening to this thinking, ‘I would love to help, but I have literally no spare money, I really can't’, there is still something you can do to help us. We have a listener survey running. We want to make this show as good as possible. So if you have a few minutes to tell us what you think we could be doing differently, the link is right there in the show notes. We would love to hear your thoughts.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
Interview time. I was joined for this week's interview by producer Wojciech, so let's bring him in. Hey, Wojciech.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Hey, how are you?

KATY LEE
Good. How are you doing?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Fine. A bit cold, but I'm fine. Struggling.

KATY LEE
Cold in Warsaw? You surprise me.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Oh, you see.

KATY LEE
So this week's interview is about life without cars. And that is somewhat ironic, because you have a car and I'm thinking about buying one.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Yeah, I have a car and I had to reluctantly replace it with a newer one recently. And it's just something that is such a pain. There's so much work.

KATY LEE
The admin.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Yeah, there's so much admin related to that. It just killed me.

KATY LEE
Didn't you actually buy your car from an Instagram influencer?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Yeah. And that was the best part of it, because actually the seller of the car turned out to be an influencer who runs a social media agency. And he gave me a free consultation while we were working for the car to be checked up. That was perfect.

KATY LEE
So listeners, if you've noticed our Instagram game improving in recent weeks, that is why. Thank you, man who sold his car to Wojciech.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Thank you.

KATY LEE
Anyway, I actually think that it made this conversation more interesting, the fact that you have a car and I'm thinking about getting one. And as you'll hear, our guest was extremely nice about the fact that I am considering buying a car this year. Who is that guest, though? It is none other than the wonderful Katja Diehl. Katja is a German activist, author and podcaster, and she spends her life thinking about mobility policy, how we get around cities and how we get around the world in general. She is someone who believes quite fiercely that everyone should have the right to a life without a car. But what would it take us to actually get there? And what is it like campaigning for that in Germany, a country that is not only home to some of the world's biggest car brands, but famously has a culture of people just loving their cars? We rang up Katja to discuss all of these things and more.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
Katja, thank you so much for joining us.

KATJA DIEHL
Yeah, thank you. I really like to enjoy this kind of talk because mobility is such a great approach in Germany with so much failure. So we can talk about it.

KATY LEE
Yeah, I mean, that's like one of the fascinating things that I wanted to ask you about. Like, OK, first of all, let's start with your fundamental belief, which is that everyone should have the right to a life without a car. Where does that belief come from and how did you come to be somebody that believes that in a country as car-obsessed as Germany?

KATJA DIEHL
People are always asking me, how can someone who was studying literature and other things, how can you talk about mobility? But I worked so many years in railway business. I worked for PTOs, public transport. And so I was like in the machine of it. And I left it some years ago because it wasn't that easy as a female to always ask the question, why are we doing it and why are we not including more people? And so I think my driver of my work is the injustice in the system. And in Germany, so many people are not allowed to drive a car. They don't have the money to drive a car. Children are not able to drive a car. So I think one third of Germans maybe is just sitting by someone who is driving a car and that is not freedom as we have the telling in Germany. It's like an addiction maybe.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
And just to be clear, when we're talking about a life without a car, we're talking just about people who live in cities, right? Because, you know, for example, I live in Eastern Europe, in Central Eastern Europe, and basically much of the countryside here is effectively unlivable without having a car for each person. How is that supposed to work?

KATJA DIEHL
For me, it's really an intense moment when we would talk about this because I lived 20 25 in the rural area with my parents, who are not able to drive a car anymore. And of course, they have built their tiny little fantastic house somewhere where you can only get at a good life with a car. My family was used to have just one car. Now the situation is that everyone in the neighbourhood beyond 18 has a car plus a van, a motorcycle. So I'm always asking the people, are you forced to drive a car or are you happy to drive a car? And sometimes people say, oh, wow, I didn't ask myself before. And 80% of my car ways are because of the lack of alternatives. So in other countries, you have a good running rail system, a good running bicycle system, you can drive a car, but you have some alternatives. And that is what I'm talking about also in rural areas. Yeah.

KATY LEE
I feel very guilty saying this, but I am thinking about buying a car later this year. Hopefully an electric car, but a car nonetheless. I've got two kids now and we're moving to a suburb outside Paris. It's an area where the public transport is okay. But for families, especially having a car opens up, you know, being able to transport everyone around at the same time, being able to take longer trips, especially to places that are off the beaten track. And I really do think that we will probably use it so much that it does make sense to buy a car for ourselves rather than just renting one occasionally. Would you like to have a go at convincing me that I am wrong and that we shouldn't go ahead with this?

KATJA DIEHL
Sometimes when I'm having a keynote on a conference afterwards, I feel like I have this kind of anonymous car addicted who are coming to me and telling me the reasons why they drive a car.
And I'm always telling them it's okay to drive a car, but be loud for the people who can't drive a car. So especially when you look at the urban city of Paris, which is really changing a lot regarding the outer skirts that people are more taking the bicycle. But of course, it's still not so easy to get there with kids. And I think that is what it is so important to talk about that you feel better to have a car, but maybe you are open to change if there are any possibilities to get around with kids. And there are studies saying that especially when families are moving to outer skirts because of the kids, women are forced to have a car. And I think it's the 15-minute city is nice, but maybe the 20-minute rural area would also be a place to be.

KATY LEE
Wouldn’t that be great.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Yeah, let's maybe talk about emissions for a second. I wanted to ask you, is that true that private cars make up only a tiny fraction of transport emissions that we can put all the blame on aviation and on cargo shipping? Because it's a notion I hear a lot and see a lot in the public discourse.

KATJA DIEHL
It's sometimes for me, that's why I'm smiling a bit – it sometimes for me is so funny where we find our comfort zone, not to change anything. When you describe maybe the life of someone in the slum somewhere in India, we three are Taylor Swift because we make so much carbon difference. We have so much power to change in regards to someone who doesn't have. So for me, it's about global mobility. And I think it is important that people recognise that in Germany, it's like 70% of the transport sector is coming from the private car. So if you have like an Excel sheet and you tell Excel, tell me where's the problem and where do we have the solution? It's really red. But in Germany, we have such an emotional connection to the car and to the industry that we are avoiding to change, avoiding to make the people's life better and more independent. And we are forced to change because of the climate catastrophe.

KATY LEE
I'm curious, hypothetically speaking, if all cars were electric and climate neutral, and everyone had access to self-driving cars – so, you know, even if you're somebody who is maybe elderly or has vision problems and can't drive, you could still have access to a car – do you think you would still be as anti-car in that world?

KATJA DIEHL
I'm totally not anti-car. As I told you before, I was driving my whole 2025 to get my parents to their places. And I'm just seeing so many opportunities, even for car industry to change to mobility industry. I made a book with a Volkswagen worker who was there for like 40 years now. And he's telling me that the parts he is building up for cars, they are also in trains, they are also in buses. So he is also thinking he might be a better part of the solution if he not build cars, but shareable mobility.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
So speaking of ideas, in one of the interviews we read before that, our conversation, suggested that people reject the idea of car-free cities simply because they're unable to imagine them. So do you think a lack of imagination is limiting the way we think about mobility?

KATJA DIEHL
Yeah, that was the topic of one of my books, which I wrote with a friend of mine who is like a science fiction author and filmer. And I think it is a kind of lack of imagination that is coming in our minds and hearts because of the industry, because of the perfect advertisement. Cars in advertisements are always running, they are not stuck in traffic. And I want to have like a training system for this imagination muscle that we rebuild.

KATY LEE
So for those of us who maybe do need a little bit of help imagining this beautiful car-free city, can you paint a picture of it for us? What does it look like and what kind of policies do you need to get us there?

KATJA DIEHL
I think it's something that starts when you leave your house. I know all the people here in Hamburg where I live in my house, but I don't know the people from the opposite house because I never crossed the street, because there are two lines of parked cars and two lanes for cars driven. And I think it's about knowing your neighbours, feeling secure, not having any fears of someone you don't know, because you can have a chat with them. You can have also like benches for elderly people who can sit down and be part of their life. And I think the policy should be that we put people first. Maybe like also having one less holiday you need, because the holiday starts at your doorstep.

KATY LEE
Your own podcast is called She Drives Mobility. And I want to ask you about the she part. We've talked a little bit about how mothers living in the suburbs often become very car dependent. But you've argued in general that mobility policy tends to be male centric. Can you tell us a little bit about why you think that's the case?

KATJA DIEHL
Yeah, that's always where I have to tell the guys, you are not the problem, you can be part of the solution. Because it's always when you're addressing feminism and intersectionality, it's always a part of where men are forced to think in another way. Jane Jacobs is someone who is really important for the change of a look of a city, but also a rural area. And she said that the world was built for white, able men. But if you see a train coming to a station, there's always a bunch of people with children, with buggies, with something they have to lift on the train, because the trains are not built for such heavy luggage.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Let's try to talk about something brighter towards the end. A lot of your work looks optimistically towards what mobility could look like in the future. And I'm really curious to know, are you optimistic about how our future mobility could look like?

KATJA DIEHL
I think optimistic for me is sometimes a bit of a couch potato, being optimistic that someone will change the world for the better. For me, it's more like hands on, start at your doorstep. And it's our job. You have children. I don't have children, but I love children. And sometimes I am also taking care of friends' children. And I want that they have a really healthy world, that they can be more independent, that they shape their mobility as they want to. Because at some age, as I know, as a teenager, it was awkward that mum and dad drove me. And it was always like, can you put me out a block before? I don't want to be seen.

KATY LEE
No, no, no, my children are never going to be embarrassed of me. I'm a cool mum.

KATJA DIEHL
We will talk.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Absolutely.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
How do you think Warsaw ranks Wojciech in terms of how car-centric it is as a city?

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Well, it used to be really bad. It has gotten slightly better in recent years. There are more bike lanes, fewer car lanes in the very city centre, and they're expanding subway lines. But overall, it's still very much a car-dominated space. Like, you know, you have these neighbourhoods where cars are the landscape. They're just parked everywhere, taking up half the sidewalks and shaping how the city feels. Yeah, I think it's just a lot of work when you have to restructure transport in a large city. But you know, it's just, I would dream of something more non-car friendly than this. And how is Paris in that regard?

KATY LEE
I mean, like, I feel really lucky to live in a country where policymakers have put so much work in recent years into making it genuinely more attractive and easier to not use a car. Like, I would not drive in Paris really ever. Like, there are so many more cycle lanes in Paris than there were when I moved here 12 years ago. So many more places to park a bike too. It is a different story in the suburb that I'm moving to in a few months time. Like, there are cars parked all over the road. So well, yeah, I'll report back on that.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Yeah, we need more parking spaces for bikes in Warsaw. Hello.

KATY LEE
Mayor of Warsaw, I hope you're listening.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK
Yeah.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
Nina, it is time to head to the Inspiration Station. What have you been enjoying this week?

NINA LAMPARSKI
Well, I feel like you and Dominic, shout out to Dominic, by the way –

KATY LEE
Hello, Dominic.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I feel like you guys always have very highbrow Inspiration Station imports. Like you were talking about A water sommelier. And I think Dominic at some other point talked about, I can't remember, some 13th century, I don't know, literary figure. Anyway, last time I was here, I brought you monk soups.

KATY LEE
Yes, we loved your monk soups.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Well, this time I'm bringing you a witch.

KATY LEE
A witch?

NINA LAMPARSKI
A witch.

KATY LEE
Okay.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Indeed. So, I mean, I'm not a very spiritual person or mystical person. You know, I like hard facts, science. But somehow my curiosity and my attention was caught by this woman online, who goes by the name of That Glasgow Witch. And so she's got an Instagram account. I don't know why the algorithm suggested her to me. I don't know what about me made Instagram think, hey, you need a spell.

KATY LEE
You need witchiness in your life.

NINA LAMPARSKI
But she just records these little videos. It's not really about, you know, spells or magic. She talks about Scottish folk practices, and these old ancient rituals. And she sits in her living room. I think there's a chimney in the back. But it doesn't really have like a Harry Potter feel. It's got more of a, let me put the kettle on. Let's sit down and have a chat.

KATY LEE
Cosy witchiness.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Just take a break. Very cosy witchiness.

KATY LEE
Okay.

NINA LAMPARSKI
And she suggests these simple rituals like, you know, cleansing your space or how to get rid of negative thoughts. So there's something very meditative. And she's got this amazing voice. It's just very soothing with a Scottish accent. And she'll talk about things like the weather, you know, how weather affects us, and what's growing, and how that's impacting us. And yeah, she talks about seasons and slowing down. And I just feel like in the current climate, I kind of think that, you know, anyone who's sort of calmness, it feels like a premium product. And I'm not the only one because I couldn't believe it, but she's got almost 650,000 followers.

KATY LEE
Whoa.

NINA LAMPARSKI
And she's very simple. It's not flashy. She's not like, you know, it's not a shiny sort of Instagram account. There's no filters involved. It's just her in her living room talking in this very soothing voice. So I recommend That Glasgow witch this week.

KATY LEE
That Glasgow Witch. And I recommend algorithmic social media, because you wouldn't have that if it wasn't thanks to Instagram serving it to you. Thank you, algorithms.Sometimes we love you. You seem very like happy and glowy today. I think it's thanks to That Glasgow Witch.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Thank you. Thank you, if it is. Thank you, Glasgow Witch. Please put me in your spells. So Katy, what's in the corner of your inspiration station this week?

KATY LEE
Well, I've actually got a recommendation this week via producer Katz. And it is a song by the Greenlandic singer songwriter Tûtu. Greenland has obviously been in a lot of our thoughts of late, it goes without saying. This recommendation actually comes from Siri Paulson, who is a Greenlandic researcher and stage director who Katz actually met while reporting in Greenland back in 2020. And Siri says, ‘100% recommend listening to Tûtu’s song ‘Qanoruna isigivinga’, which translates roughly as ‘how exactly is it that you see me?’ This song was, Siri says, ‘written in connection to last year when Trump made his first outraging claims to our territory’. And Siri said that this song, quote, ‘stands up against the crazy’ of what we've been hearing lately about Greenland. And yeah, I mean, just speaking personally, I think that given that Greenlandic voices have been largely lacking from the international conversation about what should happen to this people's land in recent weeks, it is a tiny thing, but it feels like a good thing to listen to some of the beautiful music coming from this island right now. Thank you so much for the tip, Siri. Let's hear a clip of this very beautiful song.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
We'll put a link to Tûtu's song in the show notes.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
Nina, I hear you've got a happy ending for us.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yes. So while Dominic brought you to the peaks of the Austrian Alps last week, I am dragging you down to the bottom of the sea.

KATY LEE
Oh, where are we going?

NINA LAMPARSKI
Just off the coast of Copenhagen. divers there were poking around the seabed of the, apologies to my Danish friends, Øresund Strait, when they stumbled across a huge mediaeval ship that's been sitting there quietly for about 600 years.

KATY LEE
Wow!

NINA LAMPARSKI
It's so cool. The discovery was made by archaeologists from the Viking Ship Museum, and they say it's the largest mediaeval cargo ship of its kind ever found. So how do you know its age? I hear you ask.

KATY LEE
Did you?

NINA LAMPARSKI
I did, I heard it in my head. I definitely heard you ask. By looking at the tree rings in the woods, just as you would with any tree in the forest. So the scientists were able to work out that the ship was built in 1410 using oak from what's now Poland and the Netherlands, which just shows how connected Europe already was back then.

KATY LEE
Well, yes, indeed. That is so cool.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Yes. And the ship is what's known as a cog, basically the lorries of the Middle Ages. These ships moved timber, food, bricks, salt, all the essential stuff that kept Europe running. And this one, found 43 feet, or 13 metres for our Europeans, below the water surface, was massive, about the length of two buses.

KATY LEE
Wow!

NINA LAMPARSKI
And big enough to carry around 300 tonnes of cargo. But here's the really cool bit. Because part of the ship was buried in sand, it's been incredibly well preserved. So the divers didn't just find planks of wood. They found robes, chains, bits of rigging, even personal items like shoes, combs, and rosary beads. In other words, traces of actual people. How amazing is that?

KATY LEE
Super amazing.

NINA LAMPARSKI
They also found something that archaeologists had only ever seen in drawings before, a sort of wooden castle structure at the back of the ship, where the crew could shelter from the weather.
And somehow, a brick built kitchen.

KATY LEE
Oh, they had a little kitchen there.

NINA LAMPARSKI
They had a little kitchen. I wonder if it was like an Ikea built type kitchen.

KATY LEE
Yeah, a flat pack.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Billy Hudersund. Sorry. So 600 years underwater, and you can still see where someone once cooked dinner. They even found cooking pots and traces of meat and fish. Now, the archaeologists say this proves something important. That long before stock markets and spreadsheets, Europe was already running on big trade, logistics, and big engineering projects, carried out by people who probably never imagined anyone would be talking about their ship all these centuries later. To be fair, they'd probably have a heart attack if they woke up in 2026. Nothing would make sense to them. Anyway, I think there's something quite comforting about the thought of the ship sitting there at the bottom of the sea as the centuries passed. Wars were waged, you know, peace deals were struck.I like the idea of humans building things that are meant to last, especially now where everything is just fast consumption.

[MUSIC]

KATY LEE
Nina, it's been so much fun having you here this week.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I was very happy to be here. Thank you for taking us on this windy journey, Katy.

KATY LEE
Always happy to take us on a windy journey. Will you be back soon, I hope?

NINA LAMPARSKI
If you invite me back, you know.

KATY LEE
As long as Elon Musk has another bad week, you'll be straight back behind the microphone.

NINA LAMPARSKI
I'll try and not talk about Elon or Donald Trump next time. I promise.

KATY LEE
I'll do my best. We do our best. Listeners, don't forget to send in some questions for our Q&A episode with the team behind The Europeans. Next week, you'll be hearing from our lovely producers, Wojciech, Katz and Morgan, as well as from me and Dominic, recording in person in Paris. How exciting, I can't wait.We'll see you then. In the meantime, come and catch us on the social medias. Not W for now, but we are on Mastodon, Instagram, YouTube and Bluesky. And you can find our newsletter on Substack. It is relatively new still, but it is so, so good. Come check it out.

This podcast was produced by Katz Laszlo and Wojciech Oleksiak. Thank you both so much. And thank you, Nina, for joining me.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Any time, Katy. Really big pleasure. And I'm glad that we got to do this together.

KATY LEE
Always a pleasure. See you soon.

NINA LAMPARSKI
Bye. Äddi.