ChatGPT is ruining weddings now
If you are the sort of person whose New Year’s resolutions read something like: “(1) Shoot for the moon, (2) Do what you love, (3) Change the world” – have we got a guest for you! We’re joined this week by former Icelandic prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who resigned from office in 2024 in order to run for president and is now enjoying a second life as a successful crime novelist and climate activist. Be still, our hearts. We chatted with Katrín about the security threat that climate change and the current geopolitical instability pose to Iceland; her career in politics; and why she wanted to write fiction (“Doesn’t everybody?” she asked).
Also in this episode: The Mercosur primer of your dreams! And the disconcertingly relatable story of a ChatGPT-informed wedding gone awry.
LISTENER SURVEY: Do you have a moment to help us out? We would be so grateful to hear your thoughts about what we’re doing well and where we can improve. Fill out our short, simple survey here.
-
ChatGPT is ruining weddings now679pd
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 Europeans podcast, a show that tries to explore the most pressing overlooked or misunderstood European issues of the week combined with a few issues that possibly aren't too pressing or important because we have to stay sane somehow.
KATY LEE:
Low stakes, that's what we like.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It is sometimes. I'm Dominic Kraemer in Amsterdam and that voice you just heard is Katy Lee in Paris in a new studio.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, what do you think?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I hope it's recording.
KATY LEE:
I hope it is too. The video looks a bit like I'm in a prison cell, but it's a nice prison cell.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, it's an upgrade to your bedroom and your very do-it-yourself backdrop that you've tried to fashion together.
KATY LEE:
I'm trying to hide the fact that I'm recording in my kids’ bedroom, which has giraffe wallpaper and doesn't seem that professional. We're revealing too many secrets about how this podcast is made.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes, and actually, while you're talking about secrets, we'd like to hear our listeners' secrets, wouldn't we?
KATY LEE:
Would we? What are we asking them for exactly?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, we're doing a survey, a listener survey, and I mean, it doesn't have to be secrets. We'd just like to hear your thoughts on what you think about this show.
KATY LEE:
That's not secrets at all. Secrets would be like who people are secretly in love with or something. This is much more boring than that.
This is like, what do you think about our podcast? What could we do better? Yeah, we are full of good intentions for this year and we're trying to make this podcast as good as possible.
So we want to hear from you and hear your thoughts on what we could be doing differently. Do you have a minute to help us out? We would love to hear from you.
The link for this very quick, very easy survey is right there on your screen in the description for this episode.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Thank you everyone for sharing your innermost thoughts about the podcast.
KATY LEE:
But let's get on to this week's podcast itself. What are we talking about this week?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, later on in the show, we're going to be joined by someone who had quite a big job until a while ago. We'll be speaking to Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who was the prime minister of Iceland between 2017 and 2024. We'll be talking to her about Iceland's national security and how that ties in with climate change.
And seeing as she's no longer prime minister, we'll also be asking her about what someone does after leaving such a big job like that. Spoiler alert, in her case, you start writing crime novels.
KATY LEE:
As you do.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
That's coming up later on in the show. But first, it's time for Good Week, Bad Week. Let's start with Good Week.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Who are you giving Good Week to, Katy?
KATY LEE:
Well, this segment is brought to you in collaboration with our radio friends at Euranet Plus. And I'm going to say that it has been a good week if you like free trade. It maybe hasn't been such a great week if you are Emmanuel Macron or Donald Tusk or potentially if you are a European farmer.
Can you guess what I'm talking about?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, I guess it's about this trade deal that I don't actually know how to pronounce.
KATY LEE:
I'm saying Mercosur, let's go with Mercosur.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay.
KATY LEE:
But how much have you been following this?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Not at all. I mean, apart from I know that some farmers weren't happy with it, but I don't know any other details as to why they weren't happy about it.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, I mean, I think trade agreements tend to fall under things that we vaguely know are going on, but haven't got the time to look into in great detail. But Dominic, you've probably seen the word Mercosur popping up in news headlines. And if you live in basically any European country, there have probably been angry farmers blocking the road with tractors over this.
So what is it all about? I am here this week to give you the Mercosur primer you have all been waiting for.
So Mercosur isn't actually the name of the trade deal. It is the name of a group of South American countries that trade freely with each other. And the deal that has been getting European farmers so angry, it is a trade deal between the European Union and the four founding members of the Mercosur group. So Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. And this trade deal has been in the works for 25 years. The two sides have been negotiating it, thrashing out the details, trying to get it over the line for an incredibly long time.
Last week was a pretty momentous week because finally a majority of EU countries voted in favour of signing this trade agreement. Now, several countries voted against signing, but nonetheless, because a big enough majority of EU countries did back it, it is moving ahead and it's going to apply to all EU countries, whether they like it or not. The countries that voted against it are Poland, Austria, Ireland, Hungary and France.
And in France in particular, the fact that this trade deal is going ahead, that is a really big blow personally to Emmanuel Macron. He was already incredibly weak politically before this. He cannot seem to keep a prime minister for more than about five minutes.
Macron was against the Mercosur trade deal publicly, at least. In private, he's always been a fan of free trade. So one wonders how much he's just been saying that Mercosur sucks because that's what France's very powerful farming sector requires of the French president right now.
But yeah, publicly Macron has been standing against this trade deal, but he hasn't been able to do anything to stop it. So he looks even weaker than he already did.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
And isn't the French government facing a vote of no confidence today?
KATY LEE:
It is, yeah. So we're recording this on Wednesday morning and the French government is actually facing two votes of confidence today over the Mercosur deal. It doesn't look like they can pass, but you never know. French politics is mad at the moment. So Macron comes out of this whole Mercosur business even weaker than before. Conversely, Giorgia Meloni, Italy's Prime Minister, she has come out of this whole thing looking really pretty strong.
She's played quite a clever hand here. Italy forced a delay to this trade deal for a month. And then as her prize for getting out of the way, Meloni managed to extract some pretty serious concessions for farmers that make this deal better for them.
And at that point, Meloni said, OK, I'm happy, I'll vote for it. So she comes out of this looking, frankly, in a stronger position within Europe than ever, Italy's far-right prime minister. These are the times that we're living in.
But yeah, in theory, this trade deal is finally going to become a reality after all this time. In theory. At the very least, it is going to be signed this weekend.
Ursula von der Leyen is heading to Paraguay on Saturday to sign it. And this is a big deal for her. She's been pushing for this for a long time. It's a project pretty close to her heart.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I always find trade deals a bit abstract when they get talked about in the press. Can you explain to me what this actually changes in terms of how Europe trades with Latin America?
KATY LEE:
So this is the biggest trade deal that the EU has ever negotiated.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
With anyone?
KATY LEE:
With anyone. It creates the largest free trade area in the world. So the largest area in which countries can buy and sell stuff to each other without tariffs being added that make the stuff more expensive for the customer.
On some types of products, tariffs will kick in again after a certain point. But broadly, this deal is going to make it easier for European and Latin American companies to sell stuff to each other. The countries covered by this deal account for 700 million people.
So this is huge. And what it means in practise for normal people is that, say you are in Brazil, a German car now becomes cheaper. So you might buy a German car when you wouldn't previously have considered buying a German car.
If you are in Finland, you might find yourself eating a nice, juicy Brazilian steak in a restaurant in Helsinki. Brazil is actually the largest producer of beef in the world. So you can expect some extra beef is going to be making its way over here.
And as a whole, the European Commission estimates that all of this extra trade is going to add more than 77 billion euros to the European economy by 2040.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I guess this sounds good. Although I guess it's also maybe not great for the climate if we all eat loads more beef as a result of this.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, that's actually something I wondered about. We've talked a lot on the show about how bad livestock farming is for the planet. I say this as someone who does guiltily indulge in a burger from time to time.
The beef industry has been a huge factor encouraging deforestation of the Amazon. So Europeans eating even more beef than before? No, that is not great for the climate.
There are supposedly safeguards in the deal to prevent illegal deforestation. And there's also a commitment of respect for the Paris Agreement written into the deal. I'm not sure they're worth the paper they're written on, frankly. But we have to hope that they're actually enforceable. The other thing is that I'll get to this in a second, but the amount of extra meat coming in, it isn't actually going to be that massive.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay, so not like an extraordinary week for carnivores, but broadly a good week for people that want to see more trade between Europe and Latin America.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, and the EU is celebrating this as a massive diplomatic win. Because as we all know, politics is really unstable right now. Donald Trump has kind of thrown the existing rules of global politics under the bus.
And Brussels is painting this as a triumph for the old-fashioned way of doing things, you know, negotiating a deal at a table in a calm and peaceful way. In a way that hopefully makes everyone richer in the end. In terms of the cold calculations of geopolitics, this is also good in terms of Europe's strategic thinking about Latin America.
Because China has become increasingly influential in the region. The US is obviously claiming to be running Venezuela right now. So Brussels is thinking, well, it probably won't hurt to have closer trade links with Latin America in the years to come.
It is something that maybe, maybe makes World War III feel that tiny bit less likely in the medium term.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Anything that can make it feel a tiny bit less likely, I'm willing to celebrate.
KATY LEE:
I'll take it.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But why have farmers been getting so angry about this Mercosur deal? Like, is it really that bad for them?
KATY LEE:
So European farmers have been worried for years that if you do a massive trade deal with Latin America, what it will mean is huge amounts of cheap produce flooding the European market and pricing the European farmers out. And that is a very real concern. Life as a farmer in Europe in 2026 is already incredibly hard.
A lot of small scale European farmers are barely turning a profit. Climate change is making that output really unpredictable. More and more farmers are finding that their kids just don't want to take over the business because it is just too hard.
Across the continent, farmers have significantly higher risks of committing suicide. It is heartbreaking. So there's been a lot of anger among farmers and instinctive suspicion of what this trade deal is going to do, for meat especially.
As I say, Brazil is the world's biggest supplier of beef. Argentina also produces masses of the stuff. So if you are a French livestock farmer, then yeah, of course you're going to feel threatened by this.
And it's something that you would have heard about for years because this deal has been in the works for literally a quarter of a century now. So there's been a lot of anger, including in recent months as the agreement has inched closer and closer. We have seen tractors blocking motorways everywhere from Ireland to Catalonia to Belgium. The Polish agriculture minister had manure dumped outside his house. The atmosphere has been quite febrile. However, when you look at the deal that's on the table now, the deal which a majority of EU countries have just agreed to, you have got to acknowledge that there have been a lot of concessions made to the farmers.
And that is partly thanks to Giorgia Meloni playing hardball with Ursula von der Leyen and demanding them as her price for getting out of the way. But it also comes after a lot of lobbying by these big, powerful farming lobbies that are so influential in Brussels.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sounds like you actually want to give good tweet to Giorgia Meloni.
KATY LEE:
Reluctantly.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But what are these concessions that the farmers have won?
KATY LEE:
So the main thing is that there are now really quite a lot of measures in place that try to prevent this much feared sudden influx of cheaper food to Europe from Latin America. So for particularly sensitive products like beef, there are quotas. And so the trade on those products will only be tariff-free up to a certain point.
After that, the tariffs kick back in. And in the end, it's actually really not that much Latin American beef that is going to be coming into Europe tariff-free. According to Politico, it is equivalent to 1.6% of the beef that Europeans eat every year. The same goes for poultry. It's equivalent to 1.4% of the poultry that we consume in a year. So this huge flood of cheap chicken and beef that the farmers have been worried about, it just can't really happen on that scale under the deal that is currently on the table.
The European Commission have also done some clever things with the budget so that the EU can release 45 billion euros of funding for farmers earlier than was previously planned under the next long-term budget. So there's serious money being put up to make life for farmers easier in Europe over the next few years. I think we shouldn't underestimate how much the farmers have won back here.
Yes, we do have to say that for some farmers, this deal is going to mean tougher competition and more of it, especially if you do produce beef or chicken, which is why France and Poland, which are the biggest beef and poultry producers in Europe, respectively, those two countries both voted against this deal. But if you make, let's say, wine or maybe a celebrated European food product like parmesan cheese, analysts expect that you're probably going to see pretty good benefits from this trade deal.
So it's complicated. And it is definitely a lot more complicated than this quite caricatured idea that this is a bad deal for European farmers, full stop.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Interesting. I was actually quite surprised that there don't seem to have been many protests in the Netherlands. Like Dutch farmers love taking to the roads with their tractors and dumping manure everywhere. And I don't think it's happened this time.
But like, are the farmers in the countries that are upset about it going to accept these concessions? Like, I mean, the protests seem to have been really angry.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, they have been angry. And the farmers still have a lot of support from various political parties that have taken it upon themselves to claim to be standing up for their countries. I suspect that some of these political parties are like loudly criticising Mercosur for cynical political reasons.
But they are also expressing genuine concerns over food security. You know, cheaper food for the average European is great in many ways. It helps out the poorest among us.
More business is also something that's great for many people. But with the way that politics is going, should we really be doing anything that encourages Europeans to buy more of their food from abroad right now? Like, it is a genuine question.
More than 140 members of the European Parliament have come together to try to continue fighting against the passing of this trade deal, even though it is literally being signed this weekend. And what they're trying to do is argue that the deal is illegal under EU law. They're going to try and get it sent to the Court of Justice of the EU to be legally reviewed.
If they manage to do that, it could delay this trade deal by up to two years. There's going to be a vote on this in the European Parliament next week. They probably lack the majority to make that happen.
However, the Polish government also wants to send this deal to the court. So they might succeed in getting a legal review put in place where the MEPs fail. So yeah, I mean, even though the deal is finally, finally being signed this weekend, there is still a decent chance actually, that something could happen to block it from taking effect.
The drama is not over.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I guess if people have been waiting 25 years for this trade deal, they can wait just a little bit longer.
KATY LEE:
Patience in Europe, always a virtue. Who's had a bad week?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, look, sometimes we give bad week to a country or a whole section of society or like political movement. And honestly, there were plenty of candidates in those kind of categories this week. But I've decided to go for something a bit more specific and frankly, a little bit less depressing than the many other options on offer, given that the world currently seems to be falling apart a bit.
So this week's Bad Week goes to one Dutch couple who've had their marriage annulled by a court because the ceremony didn't include the legally required wording to make it, well, legally binding. And guess who's getting the blame for that little oversight? Our AI overlords at ChatGPT.
KATY LEE:
No!
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, according to the ruling, the registrar used ChatGPT to help write the text for what was meant to be a more lighthearted than usual ceremony and in the process, left out the crucial legal bits.
KATY LEE:
Oh my God. So ChatGPT is ruining weddings now, along with everything else. Fantastic. I suppose this was inevitable. So hang on, there are things that you have to say in a Dutch wedding or you're not actually married. What didn't they say that they were supposed to say?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, you sound surprised about that. Isn't that like logical? When you get married, you do have to say certain things.
KATY LEE:
It's weird that it's like a specific wording that makes you married.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I think it's like that everywhere, no?
KATY LEE:
Maybe it is. I'm married, I should know this.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, so what they didn't declare and what they should have declared, according to Article 167, Paragraph 1 of the Dutch Civil Code, is that they accept each other as spouses and that they will faithfully fulfil all duties legally associated with marital status. Whatever that means, but in Dutch.
KATY LEE:
Just to check, you got married in the Netherlands. Did you definitely say that bit?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I guess I did. Yeah, I have no memory of it.
KATY LEE:
We should check.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I mean, I have a memory of the wedding. I just have no memory of what I said.
KATY LEE:
I'd love it if you're... How long have you been married now? 10 years or something?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Nine, almost.
KATY LEE:
Love it if it got annulled after all this time. But that phrase is a bit of a mouthful. I guess ChatGPT probably skipped it because it's boring.
I almost don't dare to ask, but what was the more lighthearted text that ChatGPT suggested they use in this now sadly annulled marriage?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I won't read you the whole marriage text, but it included things like, do you promise that you will stand by the woman's name today, tomorrow and every day that comes to laugh together, grow together and love each other no matter what life brings?
KATY LEE:
Quite sweet.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It is quite sweet.
Later there was a bit, then I hereby declare to you not just a husband and wife, but above all a team, a crazy couple, each other's love and each other's home.
KATY LEE:
I take it back. That's like the most ChatGPT wedding vows that could possibly be written.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, look, I don't want to humiliate them for having tried to come up with something a bit different. But according to this Dutch court in Overijssel, the text didn't meet the requirements to declare them married. And so last week, many, many months after the wedding happened, the marriage certificate was cancelled and they're going to have to get married again.
KATY LEE:
Sorry, you said that it was the registrar that used ChatGPT to like suggest this script. Like, shouldn't that person be fired?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, in the Netherlands, you have this quite charming thing when you can become a registrar just for a day if you jump through a few bureaucratic hoops, which means you can have a friend officiate your wedding. And that's what happened here. So yeah, the ceremony was conducted by a friend under the supervision of an official registrar.
So yes, I imagine that official registrar might be getting something like a bit of a slap on the wrist for not immediately spotting that the marriage didn't quite comply with the law.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, come on. I mean, the computer is not the only thing that screwed up here. There is also an element of the human in charge failing too.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Absolutely.
KATY LEE:
But this poor couple, that must have been incredibly stressful for them. This is not the start to married life that you want.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Right, imagine thinking you're married and then finding out months later that legally speaking, you're not. It's like quite a lot to go through. And to make it worse, the couple were really attached to that specific wedding date, April last year, because it marked their 10th anniversary together.
So yeah, they're understandably upset that they won't have that wedding date anymore. And on top of all of that, it turns into a huge media story, even ending up on the best European podcast in the world.
KATY LEE:
Are we allowed to say that? Sure.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I didn't say it was this one.
KATY LEE:
Have this couple actually spoken publicly about this experience? Have they said anything?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, they gave an interview to a regional newspaper called Destentor, I think last week, to clear a few things up. Firstly, apparently they heard about the court ruling via the media. And actually, according to the husband-to-be, the story is worse for ChatGPT than originally reported. He claims that the registrar, their friend, had actually written the speech himself and only put it through ChatGPT to check if it was legally sound. So he specifically put it through to ask if it fit the legal requirements.
KATY LEE:
ChatGPT, you had one job.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I know, right? On the other hand, isn't it just a reminder that we should not be using ChatGPT to check things for their legality? Like, even as these AI models improve week on week, they still cannot be relied on.
You recently had a weird experience with AI whilst using it for something on the podcast, right?
KATY LEE:
Yeah, oh my God. So we publish transcripts of our podcasts on our website so that people can look things up afterwards or follow the text if they're hard of hearing or don't speak English as a first language. Anyway, we use transcription software to turn the audio into text.
But annoyingly, every couple of sentences, it puts a timestamp in brackets saying, you know, Katy said this at 3 minutes 50. Dominic said this at 3 minutes 52. So while I was preparing the transcript for one of our recent episodes and going through manually deleting all of these little brackets, I suddenly thought, hang on a second, this is really boring repetitive labour. This feels like a job for ChatGPT.
So I copy pasted the transcript into ChatGPT and said, please can you remove all the timestamps from this text but leave everything else unchanged? And ChatGPT said, yes, of course, absolutely. Here is your text with all of the timestamps removed but the text otherwise unchanged. And get this, the text was unchanged except halfway through. It invented a line of dialogue for you and it made you say something about Margaret Thatcher.
It was just so weird.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Oh, I love it. It's so strange and random and odd. Did it think that I was missing bringing Margaret Thatcher into the conversation at that point?
KATY LEE:
It's like this should really be here. But it does this all the time, like the number of times when I have asked ChatGPT for information and it has been wrong and I've told it it's been wrong and then it just says, yeah, sorry, I don't know why I said that. Busted. That was wrong. Sorry. It happens all the time.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I find this like chatbot use such a minefield at the moment. It really feels like one of those issues where we're all moving into opposing camps with wildly different views from each other. I've got friends who use chatbots for like almost everything, like rehearsing conversations they're going to have with people, running all their written communication through it, basically treating it like a co-pilot to their life. I know other people who use it as a kind of advanced search engine and then I've got people in my life who are also like just completely anti any use of AI at all, whether that's because of copyright concerns or fears around artificial general intelligence or worries about climate change and the sheer amount of electricity and water these chatbots use. And I'm sure the people listening to this podcast cover that whole spectrum too, from like enthusiastic users to indifferent users to people all the way on the other end who absolutely hate the technology. I'll be honest, I'm still not entirely sure where I sit on that spectrum and it's a conversation we're having within the teams of the Europeans about like how and in what ways we use AI if at all in our work. And yeah, I think during the course of this year, we will come back to that and try to be as open as possible with you all about where we have landed as a team.
But this wedding story does serve as a very clear reminder that we just cannot blindly trust these robots. And it's worth saying that mistakes like the one in this wedding situation or the Margaret Thatcher mistake, they're not rare.
According to a study published last October by the European Broadcasting Union, AI chatbots misrepresented news content in nearly half of their responses. Google's Gemini performed the worst with significant issues found in 76% of its responses, more than double the other assistants. And this wasn't just a problem in English. The study looked at chatbots operating in 14 different languages.
KATY LEE:
The thing I'm really noticing about ChatGPT is the utter certainty with which it says wrong things. It really reminds me of a certain kind of British male politician that was educated at an elite private school where kids basically get taught that even if you are talking complete nonsense, if you say it with enough confidence, people will take you seriously. It's Boris Johnson. ChatGPT is Boris Johnson.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, it's very true.
KATY LEE:
But it is really worrying like how many people are, as you say, kind of using ChatGPT and other chatbots just as a search engine, and they just assume that they are getting factual information from them. I mean, do we have any data on how many Europeans are using these things in general in their everyday lives?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, according to the European Union's statistical office, Eurostat, your favourite website, Katy –
KATY LEE:
I do love it. And ironically.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
– 32.7% of EU people used generative AI tools in 2025, which actually was a bit lower than I expected, to be honest. But there is a huge difference depending on where you live. There's a like vague east-west and north-south divide when you look at AI usage.
So Denmark has the highest AI use of EU countries with 48.4% of people using the technology in 2025. Estonia and Malta were close behind. And at the bottom of those rankings for AI use were Bulgaria, Italy, and Romania.
So in the east and south of the continent. So in Romania, only 17.8% of the population used generative AI last year.
KATY LEE:
Malta kind of bucking the trend a bit there.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes, that is true. But yeah, I don't want to shame the one-day registrar for checking with ChatGPT whether or not his text was going to be compliant with Dutch law. Honestly, it's something I can imagine doing myself.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, oh my God.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But it's just a reminder that we shouldn't do that. If the couple and their friend are feeling embarrassed about their AI chatbot use, they should look at some reporting that came out of Germany this past week. Because they're not the only ones who are doing this.
Der Spiegel published an investigation in which they claim to have discovered that a report from the EU's cyber security agency looking at the pitfalls of hacking, also the pitfalls of hackers using AI, contained numerous errors because AI had been used in generating the report itself. Which is a pretty cruel irony.
So yeah, watch out with your AI use, everyone. Let's all take this story to heart and learn from it so that we don't have a bad week ourselves.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
2026 is a big year for us as a podcast. It's kind of a make or break year for us. If you heard last week's episode, you'll have heard Dominic explaining that while we do know that we're going to be able to keep making the Europeans for the rest of this year, what happens after that is kind of anyone's guess.
This year, we're lucky enough to be part of a consortium of European radio stations called Euranet Plus. That brings us a little bit of financial security for this year. Next year, it is very possible that we will be entirely dependent on the support of our listeners.
Which is why we are on a mega push this year to get ourselves into a position where we really could fund an entire year of podcasts just with your support. Can you help us make that happen? If enough listeners chip in with even small amounts every month, we really can do this.
So why not start your 2026 by doing something amazing and supporting the existence of independent journalism in the world? Which, frankly, we need more than ever.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
We absolutely do. So if you have any spare cash that you can share with us to keep us up and running, please head to patreon.com/europeanspodcast. You can donate as little as €4 per month.
Special thanks this week go to our latest supporters. They are Arpad, Claire, Marie, Ian, Ragnhildur, Sierra, Malcolm, Jessica R. And thank you to Noble and Jonkin for increasing their donations.
KATY LEE:
Thank you so much, guys.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
Time for this week's interview with a former prime minister. How exciting.
We've talked a little bit on the show recently about how climate change has kind of fallen out of vogue when it comes to politicians' priorities. Admittedly, there has been a lot going on, but it's not like climate change is going anywhere. Europe remains the fastest warming continent on this planet. And it goes without saying that the less we do about it, the worse our future looks. So we're always interested to hear on this podcast from politicians who are bucking that trend and still trying to make climate action central to what they're doing, central to their legacies, even. Even though it's not that trendy anymore.
Katrín Jakobsdóttir is one of these unusual politicians, or maybe I should say former politicians. She says that she's done now with running for office, but she's also an unusual politician in other ways. For one thing, she has co-written two Nordic noir crime novels.
But in her political life, she was prime minister of Iceland between 2017 and 2024. And something that is kind of remarkable about her time in office is that she managed to hold together a coalition of three very different political parties for the entire time. Her government was made up of her own party, the Left Green Movement, the Independence Party, which is kind of pro-business, and the centre-right Progressive Party.
That is no mean feat. Like how many examples are there in modern politics of such uncomfortable bedfellows managing to hold it together for seven years in government?
Anyway, Katrín quit as prime minister in 2024 in order to run for Iceland's presidency. She lost that election and she now spends her time working on various initiatives related to climate change, which you're going to hear about. And even though she has sworn off elective politics, we couldn't help but ask her a few things about the state of the world right now, including what it is like being neighbours with Greenland at the moment. We gave Katrín a call in Reykjavik.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Hi Katrín, thanks so much for joining us today on the Europeans.
Now that you're not prime minister, you've been keeping yourself busy in various ways, including by writing crime novels, I hear, which we'll come to in a minute. But you are spending a lot of your time pushing for climate action and you're doing this at a moment when it feels like many politicians are turning away from urgent climate action. They're distracted by other things. What motivated you to say, okay, now that I'm not in politics, climate is the thing I'm going to focus on?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Well, yeah, it's not exactly the best of times to be, you know, working on climate issues, because obviously I feel the backlash that's been around the world when it comes to issues concerning environment and climate. But I've been focussing on climate and health. I'm chairing a pan-European commission on climate and health, because it's a really big threat when we simply look at our health. And I believe that people genuinely care about their health. And when we see the facts, the statistics, the numbers, what effect climate change is having on our health, both direct effect, but also through issues like food security, water security, et cetera. And in times when we are speaking a lot about resilience of our societies, we definitely should be focussing on how we can take action for climate that's also a positive action for our health.
And secondly, I'm living here in the sub-Arctic, also working for the Arctic Circle Assembly, which is a non-governmental organisation. And what we see is that climate change is happening at a huge pace in the Arctic, affecting the livelihoods of all the people living around the Arctic, affecting our ocean, et cetera. So even though it's not exactly a political favourite in these times, it might never have been more important to actually work on it because it's really directly related to things that matter for all of us, our living standards and our health.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, and on that topic of the Arctic, I mean, Iceland Security Council recently declared the changing ocean currents to be a national security threat. Can you tell us a little bit about what is going on there and how ocean currents are connected to Iceland's national security?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
If you look at the map, you see where Iceland is situated in the North Atlantic. And the fact that we've been able to live here and actually enjoy quite a good life here is the fact that the ocean currents are quite favourable when it comes to Iceland. And what some scientists are saying is that we should think about the possible scenario that these ocean currents are going to change with drastic effects, not only for Iceland, but for the whole of Scandinavia.
Meaning that at the same time we are seeing unbearable heat around the continent, we might be experiencing a very cold era in Scandinavia and Iceland, which is a very serious affair. Now, this is a one scenario and that's also the fact that, you know, we're living in times where it has become popular to deny science and undermine science. And this is something very close to my heart because we have the science showing us that climate change is real, it's happening, we can't deny it.
But of course, we do not have all the answers. I can't say this is what's going to happen, but I can say this is one of the scenarios and we need to prepare for that. As well as the other scenarios.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
How does the discourse in Iceland around climate change, do you think, compare to the discourse in other parts of the world? Like, do those geographical vulnerabilities mean that Icelanders have more awareness and understanding of climate change?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Well, I think Icelanders have more awareness that nature actually can have a huge effect on our daily lives. You know, we have been going through a period of volcanic eruptions very close to our capital of Reykjavik during my time as prime minister. I think I had to tackle around seven volcanic eruptions.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Wow.
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
One of them leading to the evacuation of a whole town, a very drastic thing. So I think we are very much aware that nature actually can have a huge effect on our lives.
We are a fisheries nation. We know that what happens in the ocean around us affects us. But I think here, we also see the same trends that we see in the rest of the world, which is the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that science is being undermined. We see the political backlash here as everywhere else, where it's kind of swept away from the table as not a very important thing.
I think it's an issue that concerns every sector of our lives. It's an issue on security and safety, but also on every other sector in our lives.
KATY LEE:
You mentioned security. Talking sort of more globally about security, Iceland is the European country located closest to Greenland. How are Icelanders feeling about Donald Trump's threats to take over the island?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
I think we are taking it really close to our hearts. Greenland is our neighbour. We have a history of collaboration and friendship with Greenland.
I think you could nearly ask every person here in my country. And I think the answer would be the same, that we want to value the right of the Greenlanders to making their own decisions on their future.
It's a big country and few people. And I've been there several times. I have many friends there. And this is one of the big, for us, one of the huge, big global issues right now in the world, which can determine a lot in the nearest future.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, well, these are clearly very uncertain and worrying times for Greenland. You've previously expressed opposition to Iceland joining both the EU and NATO. Has this instability that we're currently living through changed your position on that or not at all?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
To begin with, Iceland is part of Europe. And during my time as prime minister, I always focused on a close collaboration with all of Europe, not just the EU. During my time as prime minister, we actually had the chairmanship of the Council of Europe for six months, had a summit here in Iceland. And I think that is a very important collaboration for us. EU is just one form of collaboration. They are our closest trading and business partners, but we also enjoy trade and business and collaboration with other nations.
So it hasn't really changed my view, but I still think that international collaboration, international order, if I may say so, is a hugely important issue for a small nation like Iceland, because we build our existence on a system where countries actually can collaborate, follow certain rules, make agreements, and enjoy a fruitful collaboration. And I think these issues are going to be very much discussed in the next few semesters here in Iceland, because there is a proposal concerning a national referendum on whether to continue the application process to the European Union. So probably there will be a more in-depth discussion here in Iceland in the next few months and semesters.
KATY LEE:
I feel quite bad that we're asking you so many questions about politics, because you said that you will not be going back to politics.
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Yeah.
KATY LEE:
Why have you made that decision?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Well, I was in politics for around 20 years, and I don't think, you know, you can be very political and not a politician. And that's really what I'm doing. I'm focussing on these issues that are very close to my heart.
Also, you know, being a professional politician, you know, I have huge experience after those 20 years going through an economic crisis in Iceland, pandemic during my time as prime minister, all those volcanic eruptions and other natural hazards, I could go on. But I also think it's great to have the liberty and freedom to be able to really focus on the issues closest to your heart.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I can imagine.
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
And writing crime novels, because you mentioned that.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, great, great switch in career. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about of your experience as prime minister was that you managed to keep a coalition of very different political parties together for a long time. A feat that's actually like increasingly rare in this increasingly polarised world.
Do you have any secrets to success that might be useful for other European politicians who might need to make deals with politicians they don't fully agree with?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Well, I think a lot has changed in politics for the last decades. I served as the prime minister of Iceland in a coalition, as you say, of very different parties for between six and a half years. So it was a long time.
We went through one election. It was a very eventful time also. And I actually thought it was important in times of increasing polarisation to try to do exactly that.
And of course, it's a challenging role. But it seems to me when I look at the political situation in Europe, that it's always a challenging role to keep a government together. It might even be a one party government.
And it's still a challenging project. So because we're seeing that people are impatient, everything happens faster after we started to have our political debates more on social media and less in real life. So everything happens faster.
You see people kind of go through this process of entering politics and leaving it pretty fast. And that is what we've seen in the Icelandic parliament, a very high turnover of people. So experience is lost.
And the public debate is very… let’s say it's very harsh. I sometimes say when I entered the Icelandic parliament in 2007, I was one of the first that entered Facebook. And back then I had this idea that the social media would be kind of a democratic force in our societies where everybody would gain a voice.
Now, almost 20 years later, I see a very different development on the social media platform where we actually are seeing a lot of time being spent on deepening the polarisation and dividing people even more than before.
KATY LEE:
Let's look past your political career since you have indeed put it behind you. Since leaving office, you have indeed published two crime novels. I know you studied literature. Did you always want to write fiction?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Doesn't everybody?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I don't, but Katy does.
KATY LEE:
Not anymore. Been down that road.
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
I used to say it was more kind of, it was more terrifying to write a novel than to be a prime minister. I'm not sure now. I think it's more terrifying to be a prime minister. But I really enjoy writing fiction. It's something that I enjoy very much. And I said, you know, it has been a little bit like psychotherapy for me, writing fiction.
So I'm enjoying that very much. Absolutely. And I studied literature, as you said, I actually was one of the first and maybe the first to study Icelandic crime fiction at the time. So probably it was always a dream.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
You studied Icelandic and have spoken about how AI and the dominance of the English language risk wiping out your native language. We are, of course, big fans of multilingualism here at the Europeans podcast. Can you tell us a bit about what we would lose by losing the Icelandic language?
KATRÍN JAKOBSDÓTTIR:
Well, I think, you know, I see all the opportunities that AI offers. And I'm actually working on a Nordic project and how we can use AI for the greater good of our society. So there are so many opportunities.
But we also have to be mindful that not just AI, but all the new technologies and all, you know, when I was growing up, I just heard Icelandic. I heard, you know, English, Danish, some sort of foreign languages for a very limited amount of time on the national television. Things have changed a lot.
So we have our young people growing up in an environment where they mainly hear the English language because we simply cannot produce enough material that's using the Icelandic language. And if you lose a language, it's not just like losing one tool in the shed. It's like losing a whole world of thoughts, history, culture, explaining really why we are who we are. And I think that can be said about all the languages of the world.
So I'm a great fan of multilingualism at the same time that, of course, you know, the English has become our lingua franca. We are using it today at this podcast. But all those different languages also have so many truths and thoughts to share with the rest of us. So I think it's a huge responsibility on how we can actually preserve the Icelandic language.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I was thinking we haven't had a former prime minister as our guest since Alexander Stubb, who is now president.
KATY LEE:
Well exactly! So I was thinking, like, even though Katrín swears that she's quit politics, maybe she'll go back and it'll be thanks to us. We have a good track record of getting people to the presidency.
Can I claim credit for Alexander Stubb becoming president after appearing on this podcast?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Almost certainly. Maybe it's the mistake Katrín made when she ran for president in 2024. She should have appeared on this podcast.
KATY LEE:
We need to have all presidential candidates on this podcast, I think. Away from politics: Katrín's first novel, Reykjavik, is available in English. It was co-written by Ragnar Jørgensen and the English version has been translated by Victoria Cribb. It's about a plucky journalist investigating a cold case and it's actually gone down a treat. The Financial Times described it as “Nordic noir at its most authoritative”.
It seems like the perfect book to get stuck into on these cold winter nights. You should check it out.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
Let’s head to the Inspiration Station. What have you been enjoying this week?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I've been enjoying the 10th edition of the European Review of Books. Now, Katy, I'm sure you remember that we interviewed the people behind this magazine on the show many, many years ago before they'd even launched a copy. Yeah, when their idea of creating a magazine full of curious, witty, intellectual European essays was just a figment of their imagination.
Now, many years on, they have their 10th issue out and I'm really enjoying it and really enjoying seeing how this magazine has just got better and better over the 10 issues. It's really the perfect dish to serve alongside the Europeans podcast because it is, in a slightly more erudite way, perhaps, than us doing what we are trying to do here. Binding us together as Europeans by presenting this difficult to define continent as an interconnected web of culture and thinking.
It's full of great writing from all across the continent. To give you an idea of some of the pieces in this issue, there's an excellent essay titled “Can AI Have Headaches?” Which is kind of a horrifying description of living with debilitating headaches combined with reflections on the existential dread and panic around AI.
KATY LEE:
Sounds really fun.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It is, and it ends with an unexpected celebration of the Vatican's defence of human intelligence over artificial intelligence, which I really wasn't aware of.
There's also a great piece about that Swedish cultural canon that we talked about on the podcast in Good Week, Bad Week in this show many months ago. You know, this thing where, as a boon to the far-right party in the coalition in Sweden, the government agreed to put together a list of what counts as Swedish, what cultural things are Swedish. That one's called “What Sweden Isn’t".
So go get your beautifully designed copies of the European Review of Books, or even take out a subscription if you're feeling generous because they're another independent pan-European media outlet like us. Another initiative that's like trying to subvert the tech bro oligarchy with each magazine they sell. Go check them out.
KATY LEE:
Love that way of putting it.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
What have you been enjoying, Katy?
KATY LEE:
Yeah, I am finally listening to podcasts again now that the holidays are over. And over the past week or so, I have really been enjoying a new series in English from Deutsche Welle, the German public broadcaster. It's called Delayland. Is it on your radar?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
No, not at all.
KATY LEE:
It's very relevant to our interests because as a lot of listeners will know, this podcast has ongoing beef with Deutsche Bahn, the German train operator. We just don't ever seem to be able to take a train in Germany. That isn't really late and chaotic. And we're not the only ones. Deutsche Bahn's quality of service has become kind of infamous. And Delayland is a podcast about that. Not specifically about the trains, but more broadly about this gap that there is a lot of the time between Germany's image in the world, which is still this image of a country where everything is efficient and works properly. And the reality, which is that getting stuff done in Germany can be really slow and frustrating. Not just the trains, but also things like construction, getting decent Wi-Fi, getting your paperwork in order if you move to Germany as an immigrant.
Like just stuff is slow and hard.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sounds super interesting. I want to listen to this.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, it's a really good listen. It's co-hosted by Andreas Becker and Nikolas Martin, who are two Deutsche Welle reporters with an enjoyably dry sense of humour. And they approach this topic of why it's so hard to get stuff done in today's Germany with a mixture of journalistic rigour and tongue in cheek.
They've done episodes on the construction industry, the car industry, why Germans still use fax machines.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Do they actually?
KATY LEE:
Yeah, for quite a few things. God bless Germany, keeping the fax machine industry alive. Yeah, I really, really recommend this podcast.
It is called Delayland and you can find it wherever you're listening to this.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I have a happy ending from the Czech Republic this week, a case where something genuinely depressing produced a reaction that was very much not depressing. But first the depressing part. The far right speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, Tomio Okamura, gave a New Year's speech in which he sharply criticised funding Ukraine's military defence.
Okamura suggested that money for Czech pensioners and citizens with disabilities was being used to send weapons to Ukraine to quote, perpetuate a completely senseless war. He claimed that Western companies and governments, along with Ukrainian thieves around the Zelensky junta, are building toilets out of gold. Pretty depressing remarks.
And yeah, it highlights the as yet unanswered questions about what happens next to Czech support for Ukraine under the country's current populist coalition government. The remarks did trigger a wave of condemnation from Czech opposition parties.
And yeah, there's a happier twist because Okamura's speech had an unexpected effect, a positive one for Ukraine.
It prompted a surge in donations to the Czech-run fundraising initiative, A Gift for Putin, which raises money for weapons for Ukraine in deliberately attention grabbing and creative ways. The organisers said that in the first few days of the year, they received around five times more donations than during the same period last year.
A similar surge in donations actually happened in November after Okamura had the Ukrainian flag removed from the chamber of deputies building where it had been hanging since the start of the full scale invasion. One of the organisers of A Gift for Putin said that Okamura's ultra right wing party is, quote, becoming our influencer.
So yeah, I see this charitable reaction to far right rhetoric as a small but heartening reminder that not everyone is ready to give in to pro-Putin authoritarian narratives.
KATY LEE:
Take that, Tomio.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
We will be back next week on Thursday, right? We're not a Friday podcast, are we now, Dominic?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sorry, no, we're not. Just sometimes. Keeping people on their toes?
KATY LEE:
My gut feeling is that people would rather not listen to podcasts about the possibility of World War III breaking out on Fridays. And that is probably going to be something that we allude to semi-often in the weeks to come. So we should be a Thursday podcast.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay, I'll try my best to be available. Yeah, in the meantime, check us out on the social media machines. BlueSky, Mastodon, Instagram and YouTube are where we're at, as well as, of course, our lovely Patreon where we have a community chat if you decide to join us there.
And most importantly, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter, which is going from strength to strength over there on Substack.
KATY LEE:
It really is.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
This week's episode was produced by our newsletter writer-in-chief, Morgan Childs in Prague, Wojciech Oleksiak in Warsaw, and also Katz Laszlo, who is back from Sicily and braving some rainy Amsterdam winter weather with me. See you all next week.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, see you on Thursday.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Tot de volgende keer.
KATY LEE:
Take care, bye!
Inspiration Station recommendations:
The 10th edition of the European Review of Books
The Deutsche Welle podcast Delayland
Other resources for this episode:
“32.7% of EU people used generative AI tools in 2025” – Eurostat, 16 December 2025
“Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory” – European Broadcasting Union, 22 October 2025
“Thinker, Plaintiff, Merkel, Spy” (our interview with the creators of the European Review of Books) – The Europeans, 3 June 2021
The Weapons to Ukraine fund, AKA Czech initiative A Gift for Putin (Dárek pro Putina)
Producer
Morgan Childs, Wojciech Oleksiak and Katz Laszlo
Mixing and mastering
Wojciech Oleksiak
Music
Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month (many currencies are available).
You can also help new listeners find the show by leaving us a review on Apple or giving us five stars on Spotify
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.