Why are Europeans so bad at imagining the future?
When it comes to envisioning the future, what’s your type? The Positive? The Negative? The Uncertain? The Disconnected? No, these aren’t characters in a pop group or a teen movie – they’re the four ways of imagining a European future. So says Paweł Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a three-peat guest and true Friend of the Podcast. Paweł is back once more to walk us through this year’s European Sentiment Compass, “Future Nostalgia: Europe’s Unfinished Song”. Come for the Dua Lipa reference, stay because you’re a polling nerd like the rest of us. We’re also talking about British lawmakers’ quest to figure out why the UK does quite so badly at Eurovision and what the seizure of Nestlé and Auchan’s Russian assets says about the Kremlin’s finances.
You can read this year’s European Sentiment Compass – which is, like us, supported by the European Cultural Foundation – and have fun categorising yourself here.
FREE ON MONDAY NIGHT? Join Katy and Paweł for discussion and documentary-watching in Brussels on 28 September, or Dominic and Wojciech for a little post-truth democracy in The Hague. We have two tickets to give away to the event with Katy and Paweł, courtesy of our friends at Newframes. They’ll go to the first person who emails hello@europeanspodcast.com with TICKETS in the subject line, so get in there quick!
There’s plenty more to our excellent conversation with Paweł. Supporters of the show who are signed up to our private feed can hear the second half of our chat, including the revelation that Poland, of all places, is a surprisingly optimistic corner of Europe. Sign up over here.
Supporters also get lots of cool perks and the warm glow of supporting independent European journalism. So if you haven’t already, get in for the glow!
Inspiration Station recommendations:
Sorcha Richardson’s new album, “Draw the Outline”
Other resources for this episode:
"The Russian assets of Nestlé, Auchan and the former Leroy Merlin have been transferred to the management of a company led by an interior ministry general" – Novaya Gazeta, 17 September 2026
“Moose on the loose at Warsaw’s main station brings trains to a standstill” – Notes from Poland, 14 September 2026
CO-HOSTS
Dominic Kraemer and Katy Lee
PRODUCERS
Wojciech Oleksiak and Morgan Childs
SENIOR PRODUCER
Katy Lee
MIXING AND MASTERING
Wojciech Oleksiak
MUSIC
Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
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KATY LEE:
This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Hello and welcome to The Europeans podcast, the podcast that tries very hard to make an entire continent's chaos sound like a good time. I'm Dominic Kraemer in Amsterdam and I'm joined by Katy Lee in Montreuil. How is it over there?
KATY LEE:
That was an interesting diphthong. You're going to have to get better at saying that.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
How is it?
KATY LEE:
It's very nice. Yeah. But hang on a second. What are you doing here? I thought you were away this week, Dominic.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, I know. We announced last week that I wouldn't be here this week, but things change sometimes. I became available.
KATY LEE:
Couldn't resist.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I couldn't stay away.
KATY LEE:
Well, I'm very happy to have you here. The original plan was for producer Wojciech to join me in your place this week. And in fact, Wojciech will be joining us for this week's interview, because it was recorded in person in Warsaw this week, which makes for a very nice change.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes, that's true. So, anyone who feels shortchanged by the fact that Wojciech isn't here yet, don't worry, he will be turning up later on in the show, and he will be joined by longtime friend of the pod, Paweł Zerka, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, to talk about this year's edition of the European Sentiment Compass. For this project, thousands of Europeans have been interviewed to find out what Europe means for them today. And I can't wait to hear what they’ve discovered. From what I understand, it's been a nostalgic year for Europeans.
KATY LEE:
Before that, though, in Good Week Bad Week, I am going to be talking about why this week of all weeks is a really bad week to be a Western corporation that is still active in Russia.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
And I'm going to be talking about a new initiative to try and get to the bottom of why the UK has recently gotten so terrible at the Eurovision Song Contest.
KATY LEE:
This is like your dream topic. I bet you can't wait for this. Can we mention one more thing before we get started?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Go for it.
KATY LEE:
If you've been listening to the show for a while, you might remember that we experimented with doing a kind of online group hang earlier this year, where we just kind of show up in a video call and hope that some listeners join us. And it was super fun. So we're going to do it again.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
When?
KATY LEE:
Well, this time we're experimenting with a different day and time to see what works best for people. Because we do have the privilege of having an audience that is kind of spread all over the world. This time we're going for a Sunday early evening Europe time. So put this in your calendars: Sunday, October the 18th at 6 pm, Central European time. Wojciech and I will be hanging out for an hour with whoever fancies showing up. And we'd love it if you joined us. We'll make the link for the call available close to the time.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But for now, it's time for Good Week, Bad Week.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Who has had a bad week, Katy?
KATY LEE:
I am going to give my bad week to a couple of extremely well-known European companies, Nestlé and Auchan. Nestlé, of course, being the makers of Kit Kats, Smarties, Nesquik, and a bunch of other delicious processed foods. They haven't paid me to say that. I just love processed junk.
They also make Nespresso coffee capsules. That is Nestlé, which is based in Switzerland. The other company having a bad week is Auchan, the giant French supermarket chain. Auchan have shops in about a dozen countries, most of them in Europe. So, the chances are you know Auchan. Although if you shop there in Spain, you will know it as El Campo. Why have these giant multinational corporations had a bad week? Well, they have both found themselves on the receiving end of some bad news from Vladimir Putin.
And that took the form of a presidential decree stripping these two companies of their Russian assets and placing those assets under the control of a Russian company. Also affected by this decree were the French DIY chain Leroy Merlin, although the company isn't actually called that anymore in Russia, and it is based out of Dubai. So, less interesting for this European podcast. And a French logistics company saw their Russian assets stripped as well.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay, so Russia has essentially expropriated these companies.
KATY LEE:
Technically not yet, because supposedly this new Russian company has taken temporary control of these assets, so maybe they'll give them back. But yeah, it's hard to see in what circumstances that would ever happen. When the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked why these companies had had their assets taken away, he said it was because they are, quote, “European companies, companies from unfriendly countries”. And that status is not something that's going to change anytime soon. So, it's really difficult to see what might prompt the Kremlin to change its mind and just give these Western companies their assets back. And we do already have some examples of what can happen to Western companies in Russia that have had this happen to them already.
So, this move against Nestlé and Auchan last week, it was carried out under a 2023 law. It was passed the year after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And that law was passed in response to Western sanctions. The idea was to help the Kremlin retaliate to the sanctions by saying, you know, we can take control of your companies if you want to. So, Danone, the French dairy giant, and Carlsberg, the Danish beer company, both of these massive companies also had this exact same thing happen to them already. They got seized while trying to leave Russia, to their credit. And in the end, both of these companies were forced to sell their Russian assets for way less than they were worth.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
One of the things I find wild about this is that these Western companies have actually stayed in Russia.
KATY LEE:
Yeah.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Like, with that threat hanging over them.
KATY LEE:
Mm-hmm. And it is kind of amazing, isn't it? To be clear, lots of Western companies did quit Russia after 2022, either because they thought that leaving was the right thing to do, or maybe they thought something like this would happen to them. Or if you want to be cynical about it, because they didn't want to deal with any potential backlash if they decided to stay. H&M, for example, left Russia. IKEA shut down all of its stores and factories in Russia.
For some brands, the story is a little bit more complicated. McDonald's, for example, did leave, but in leaving, it sold all of its 850-ish restaurants to a Russian businessman who just rebranded the restaurants and kept them open with basically the same menu. It's called Vkusno i Tochka, and apparently, as a culinary experience, it feels like really very similar to going to the old McDonald's. Also, there's a buyback clause written into the deal. So, if McDonald's wants to come back to Russia sometime in the next 15 years, it can do that. But yeah, plenty of Western companies did quit Russia. Some of them stayed, including Auchan and including Nestlé. Auchan defended that decision by saying that they had been in Russia for 20 years, that they had a responsibility to their 30,000 employees in the country.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Wow.
KATY LEE:
And they also argued that they had a humanitarian responsibility to provide ordinary citizens basic products to survive with.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Surely if they weren't providing those basic products, some other company would have stepped in and done that.
KATY LEE:
Yeah. And there was also, you know, heavy criticism from the Ukrainian authorities to this who argued that like that position effectively meant that they were contributing to the Russian war effort by keeping the economy going and keeping people with the provisions that they needed. We should also note that Auchan have made plenty of money by staying for these supposedly moral reasons. They bought in revenues from Russia worth 1.3 billion euros in just the first half of this year alone. Nestlé similarly tried to justify their decision to stay in Russia. They said...
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
... people need Nespresso capsules!
KATY LEE:
Exactly. They're a basic item. My husband would argue that they are a basic, essential item. But they also said, you know, we make baby formula, we make food for hospitals. We are going to stay for humanitarian reasons, but we're going to concentrate on providing those basic things rather than making a profit. And to be fair to Nestlé, they did cut off the imports of many of their products. They have also launched significant charitable support for Ukraine, much more than Auchan. But they also, you know, carried on making pet food within Russia, carried on processing coffee within Russia. And again, they have faced really strong criticism from the Ukrainian government for staying and from activists too. If you're interested, by the way, in which international corporations have stayed in Russia and which have gone, there is an excellent, regularly updated website: leave-russia.org. And that is well worth your time. It's run by the Kiyv School of Economics, I think.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
So, who is it that's now controlling all of these Auchan supermarkets and Nestle factories that are still in Russia?
KATY LEE:
So, this is where it gets really interesting. So, Novaya Gazeta, the Russian-language investigative website, they did a little digging and they found out that all of these assets have been transferred to a rather mysterious company called L.E.V. Management. And the reason that we don't know much about L.E.V. Management is that it was only created at the end of last year. It has no known business activity and it has just one listed employee.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
That is really weird. So, we have like no idea who's behind it, apart from this one listed employee.
KATY LEE:
We have a bit of an idea. So, the company is headed by a guy called Andrey Krayushkin. And that is the name of somebody who used to be high up in the Russian interior ministry.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Oh, surprise, surprise.
KATY LEE:
Well, we're kind of resting on an assumption here that it's the same guy, for we know it could be a different guy with the same name. But even if it is this former senior official, we still know very little else about him. Apart from the fact that he seems to have hit a child with his car back in 2020.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Oh...
KATY LEE:
What we do know about Andrey Krayushkin is that he doesn't seem to have any public record of having notable experience running massive supermarket chains or food factories. So, there's no obvious thing that would make you think: oh yeah, this is the guy who is really well positioned to take over Nestlé and Auchan.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
So, what are we supposed to make of the fact that his company has been given control of these massive Western brands?
KATY LEE:
This whole thing is so interesting and it is so murky, as always, when you're trying to figure out what's going on inside Russia. But I was chatting to producer Wojciech about this. I think it's fair to describe Wojciech as our team's chief Kremlin watcher. And he was wondering if we might see this move as quite a strong sign, actually, of just how shaky the Russian state's finances are. You know, Russia is fighting this tremendously expensive, horrific, illegal war. And it is also a war that is increasingly threatening Putin's own power base. As Wojciech put it to me, the oligarchs around Putin may be getting angrier and angrier. They never wanted this war. And only a small share of them have made money out of it, while most of them have lost and lost big. So Putin might be looking for ways to redistribute some wealth and businesses amongst the disgruntled ones, because they're really the only threat to him. So, you might see why it could be wise for Putin to effectively buy the support of figures with a certain amount of power by, for example, handing them control of a massive supermarket chain or a bunch of factories. I mean, just to be clear, we have no solid confirmation that that is what's going on. But it does seem kind of plausible that this might be operating as a kind of reward system.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But couldn't it also be a way of just getting extra resources to fund the war effort?
KATY LEE:
It could, yes. And just to state why the Kremlin needs extra resources so badly right now, as you probably read about, Ukraine is continuing to pummel Russia with drones. And that is having a devastating effect on ordinary people's lives and on the economy. For quite a while now, the Ukrainians have been targeting oil refineries, which has been incredibly effective for causing widespread economic disruption. Russia is seeing these massive fuel shortages and like petrol rationing.
But Ukraine has been hitting back more and more with attacks that are also targeting civilian infrastructure. So, they're hitting apartment blocks, which is giving Muscovites a taste of what people in Ukrainian cities have had to live with for years already. They're hitting logistics facilities that allow Russians to do their internet shopping.
You know, this is the everyday civilian economy that they're targeting now. It's obviously really hard to get a sense, even from polling data, about how Russians actually feel about Putin and their leadership. But it's really hard to imagine that with all of this stuff going on, ordinary Russians are sitting there thinking, "This war is going fantastically! It's making us feel safer and richer!”
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Which is ironic, because, I mean, if you look at the results from the Russian parliamentary elections over the weekend, you would think that that's how people feel about Putin. His party did better than ever.
KATY LEE:
It would indeed. United Russia just won a record supermajority in the parliament. Obviously, a result that was preordained. You know, let's not waste any time discussing whether that was a free or a fair vote, because of course it wasn't. Having a supermajority, obviously, allows the Kremlin to present a narrative in state media of support among ordinary Russians being stronger than ever. And having a super majority also means that his party retains the power to change the constitution at will, which is helpful.
But yeah, it presents a totally parallel reality to what's actually happening on the ground. And just to give you another indication of how badly things are going for Putin right now, this presidential decree, the one under which Auchan and Nestlé have just seen their assets taken away, that's called Presidential Decree No. 302. It was passed three years ago. But there was another presidential decree passed this summer, Decree No. 604, which...
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Double.
KATY LEE:
You're so right. That's a good little extra nugget. Anyway, under No. 604, the newer one, it is now no longer just foreign companies like Nestlé and Auchan that can have their assets taken away. So Russian companies that have nothing to do with these so-called unfriendly countries in the West, they can also just be stripped by the Kremlin of their assets at a moment's notice. And very interestingly, one of the justifications for that is if a Russian business is deemed to have failed to protect itself from these Ukrainian drone attacks.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But isn't it like the military's job to protect everyone in Russia from drone attacks?
KATY LEE:
You would think so, right? I mean, it's hard to interpret this law as anything other than a sign of just how short of cash and resources the Russian state is, if it is threatening to confiscate companies' assets for doing something that the state should be doing in the first place. I mean, you are seeing companies scrambling to hire drone protection specialists. Wildberries, which is Russia's kind of answer to Amazon, they have been rushing to put up wire mesh around their sites to help protect them from these drone attacks. But there's only so much they can physically do to replace the actual military.
So, the upshot is, this week Auchan and Nestlé have seen their assets confiscated. Next time we could well be seeing Russian homegrown companies having their assets confiscated, presumably to fund the state's war effort. Which makes this that rare thing: this is actually a bad week story that might just have a nugget of a good week story buried inside it.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Love that.
KATY LEE:
How unusual. But yeah, I think it's just really a sign of how dire things have become within the Putin machine. Does it mean that the war is going to end tomorrow? Sadly not. But there is a little shred of hope in it, nonetheless.
sl
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I'll take that.
KATY LEE:
Who has had a good week, Dominic?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I'm giving good week to British Members of Parliament, who have taken the decision to finally try and get to the bottom of the biggest, most baffling question of our age. The question of why the UK does so very terribly at the Eurovision Song Contest.
KATY LEE:
I love how we're about as far away in the calendar year from Eurovision as you can get, but you're still finding a way to make this a relevant topic that we have to talk about now.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, to be fair to me, I didn't really talk about Eurovision much at all this past year, so I feel like I have some Eurovision credits available, which I'm deciding to use up now. And yeah, I promise I'm going to try and make this a short, diverting, good week that is interesting even for people who think they have no interest in this song contest.
KATY LEE:
Go on.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Okay, well, to clarify, it's not all Members of Parliament who are going to be debating this issue. It's the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. A select committee in the UK is a small group of Members of Parliament that investigates specific issues and host hearings. And this particular hearing into Eurovision will be taking place as part of their “state of play” series where members of the public or other stakeholders submit ideas for issues the committee could investigate. So, this one comes from the people.
KATY LEE:
This is one of the things that British people care about.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I mean, it really is. And I mean, as a fellow half-British person, Katy, I think you will agree that British people hate the fact that we're doing so badly in Eurovision, right?
KATY LEE:
Yeah, and I think it becomes a bit of a complex of, you know, if there's one thing about British people, we like being liked. And I think people are starting to think, “oh, God, does everybody hate us? Is this a Brexit thing?” I mean, just to be clear, like, I've never experienced any actual hostility from people as a British person in Europe, but the results don't look good on paper. I mean, I know British people like always complaining about how badly the UK has done in Eurovision in recent years, but like, are the results getting worse? Are we like doing historically badly? Or are we just being a bit of a sore loser here?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I actually think it's a bit of both. Like, Brits are kind of bad losers. Also on the sporting stage, there's always this like assumption that we should win, or at least be in the top two. And like, oh, when we come fourth, everyone's like, yeah, there we go again. And I'm like, hey, we came fourth.
KATY LEE:
To be fair, for pop music... I mean, we do historically make quite a lot of pop music, so it's not unreasonable to expect that we could do better than this.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It's true. And honestly, the UK has been really very bad at Eurovision over the past 15 years. They've only made it into the top 15 once in all those 15 years. And that was with Sam Ryder's song Spaceman which is the exception. The only good result recently for the UK. He came second in 2022.
KATY LEE:
Okay, so we've done really badly for the last 15 years. Brexit has been a kind of 10-year story. Can you genuinely make an argument that the UK does worse than they used to, because of, like, resentment over Brexit?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I had a look into this. And if you look at the UK Eurovision final placements in the 10 years before the Brexit vote, and the nine years with the Eurovision competition, since the Brexit vote, the average ranking of the UK is pretty much the same in those two timeframes. So for the 10 years pre-Brexit, there was an average final placement of around 19th. And for the nine years since Brexit, there's been an average placement of 20th. So, it's really not a marked difference. If you look further back at UK Eurovision results pre-2000, the UK was really very good at the Eurovision Song Contest. Of course, the voting system was different. We were living in a completely different world and there were fewer countries competing.
But before the year 2000, the UK finished in the top 10 every year, bar three years. And the UK still has the record number for the most number of second place finishes: 16 times over the history of the competition. And they've also won the competition a very respectable five times.
But yeah, so Sam Ryder aside, the UK has clearly lost its Eurovision X-factor over the last few decades. But honestly, I doubt the Brexit will end up taking the main chunk of the blame when these MPs investigate it. The Sam Ryder second-place result from 2022 undermines the argument that Europe hates the UK post-Brexit and therefore won't vote for us. Although I have heard an argument that one of the main reasons the UK did so well that year was a geopolitical reason. So, it was months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had begun. And some people say that maybe Europeans were rewarding the UK for having responded quite strongly in defending Ukraine. I personally think that's not very fair on Sam Ryder, who just wrote a very appealing song.
KATY LEE:
It's just a nice painter decorator that wrote a great song. It's a good song. It's still a good song.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Anyway, I'm pleased to see that the members of parliament, at least in the press, so far seem to be focussing on the quality of acts that the UK has been sending. So the chair of this select committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage, said to the BBC, we want to get to the bottom of who chooses our entrant, on what basis and whether our dismal record of achievement in recent years is the result of bad song choice, weak performance or something else.
KATY LEE:
It's quite interesting to see the BBC interviewing members of parliament about this, because isn't it the BBC itself that decides what song an artist gets chosen to represent the country?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes, very true. I mean, I think it's probably a different department. I hope it's not the BBC News department that chooses which artists get selected. But of course, yeah, it's the public broadcaster, the member of the European Broadcasting Union. In this case, it's the BBC who decides how the artist is selected. And in many countries, they still have these national competitions to select the artists. There's, famously in Italy, Sanremo. In Sweden, there's Melodifestivalen. And for many years, they did that in the UK too, actually, from the late 50s up until 2010, the UK entrants were also selected with national televised competitions.
KATY LEE:
So, there does seem to be this like coinciding of the UK's golden years of Eurovision success and the time when we had a national competition in the UK.
No? And just to like carry on with this theory that I've got brewing in my head, countries like Sweden and Italy, who have done quite well recently, they are national competition countries. So like, surely the answer is clear. Shouldn't we just go back in the UK to having a competition to choose the winning entry?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, I also had that thought. But then if you look a bit closer, the UK brought the national televised competition thing back between 2016 and 2019. And the results of those national finals did not lead to good results. So, it's not the magic solution that you might be hoping for. The BBC has tried various things. They've tried working with a few different music industry organisations to like try and professionalise the selection process. But that also hasn't really helped in recent years, apart from with Sam Ryder.
So yeah, I'm really interested to see what the members of parliament find. I do hope that it puts to bed the idea that, oh, everyone hates us British people on our island over here. And Eurovision is all about voting blocs. Of course, voting blocs do play a factor. So countries that always vote for each other like...
KATY LEE:
Greece and Cyprus?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Like Greece and Cyprus. That does kind of gets in the way of quality over politics. But I personally think the main problem is that the UK has just not sent good enough acts in recent years. And Katy, you pointed out earlier that the UK does have a lot of pop and musical talent. And that's very true. But it's quite a risky thing for a British artist to enter Eurovision these days. And it's often been seen as a poisoned chalice to be selected.
KATY LEE:
Oh, it's like bad publicity.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, it's very unlikely that being the UK Eurovision entrant will help your career. And in some cases, it's really damaged careers or been a traumatic experience. For example, Olly Alexander from Years and Years, he represented the UK in 2024. And he rather flopped, even though I like the song. And he's said on the record that it was a really brutal experience. And he recommends that any future UK entrant get themselves a good therapist before taking on this responsibility.
KATY LEE:
That's so sad to hear.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It is. And I mean, of course, it can be a stressful experience from people from every country. But I do think there is maybe more potential upside for an artist from a smaller country, like say, Bulgaria or Lithuania, where it kind of gives them access to this massive audience and also gives them the potential to become a bit of a national hero. There just seem to be more cases of artists representing smaller countries and becoming quite well known in their home country as a result. And that doesn't seem to happen in the UK much. And maybe that's because of how Brits look at Eurovision as this like silly camp ironic thing, instead of a competition where real talent is rewarded.
KATY LEE:
I mean, one way that the UK could also avoid another defeat would just be to not compete anymore.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Ooh.
KATY LEE:
And of course, there is one big reason why some people think the UK should not be competing in Eurovision anymore. And that is the continued participation of Israel, despite the state sanctioned ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation and the genocide in Gaza. Is there any chance that the UK just will decide not to compete next year?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
It looks very much like the UK will compete at least next year. But it's good you bring it up because this week there was confirmation that Ireland will not be competing in Eurovision for the second year running due to Israel's continued participation. That follows the news that the Netherlands also won't be there. And yeah, at the time of recording, we don't know whether Iceland, Slovenia and Spain will also end up boycotting for a second year running. But I mean, I also wondered whether there could be a shift in Eurovision now that we have a new prime minister, Andy Burnham, and a new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, both of whom seem to be taking a slightly bolder stance in criticising the state of Israel. And yeah, Ed Miliband announced new sanctions on illegal settlements a few weeks ago, along with some other European countries, plus Canada. But I don't think there's much chance at the moment that the BBC would pull out of Eurovision at this stage. The BBC is so scared of appearing to take any position that could ever be seen as political. And therefore, like the status quo with the UK taking part will almost certainly remain for now. But let's see what the MPs say.
Maybe they'll say we have to get out of this competition because they're all biased against us, or we're just not up to it as British people to deliver anything of quality. I doubt that will be what they come up with. But I'm really interested to see what happens in these hearings.
And I assume that they're going to be interviewing BBC bosses and various music industry experts. But maybe one of their conclusions should be that we should only do it if we can persuade an Adele or a Charli XCX to compete for the UK. But like, why would any of those artists actually put themselves on the line like that?
KATY LEE:
Ah, that's a very good question.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
The Europeans podcast is that very rare beast of being a long-running independent podcast. We're members of a consortium of European radio makers, this Euronet Plus thing. And that helps us hugely, but we're still not under the umbrella of any big media organisation, unlike most podcasts you'll probably have in your feed. Actually, I was going through my feed recently, and I think out of about 50 or so podcasts I'm subscribed to, only a tiny handful of them are independent, which is awful. And maybe I need to do better with my listening habits, but I also just think it's hard to be an independent podcast maker these days. And the only way we're able to continue making this as an independent outlet is because of support from our listeners.
So, thank you all so much, especially the people this past week who have decided to increase their donations. That's a huge, huge help. If you'd like to consider donating to us, please head to our website: europeanspodcast.com/support in order to find out more about how you can keep us going.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, just to give you all a bit of a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the Europeans finances, we have been hit with some unexpected expenses lately. So we did reach out to some of our supporters and ask if they might be willing to reconsider how much they give us. And a huge number of people who already give us money just decided to give us more money every month, which is incredibly kind. So a big, big, big thank you this week goes to those existing supporters: Paweł, Chiara, Karina, Morag, Eliska, Jola, Sarah, 332, Wadim, Charlie, Adele, Mark, Ron, Eva, Emily and Michael, and also to our newest supporters, Anna and Vylansealab.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Thank you all so much!
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
You know me, Dominic.
I love a survey.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I mean, I do too. It's probably why we're friends.
KATY LEE:
It's the only thing holding our friendship together. But yeah, I love like cold, hard data that gives us some kind of glimpse into how people are feeling about a thing or more often than not, a political candidate. Something that feels really hard to poll people about is how they feel about Europe. Because talking about Europe, as we've discovered while making this podcast, it is really hard. Like Europe is an abstract thing. It means different things to different people. So to get a sophisticated picture of how people feel about this thing called Europe, beyond just, you know, asking them whether or not they like the EU or they trust the EU, it is a really difficult endeavour, which is why one of my favourite things that happens every year is this excellent project by our friends at the European Council for Foreign Relations and the European Cultural Foundation. It is called the European Sentiment Compass. And it is this mythical thing, a detailed, substantive, annual study of how Europeans feel about Europe itself.
The other thing that's really good about the European Sentiment Compass is that it happens to be authored every year by someone who is very fun to talk to. That person is Paweł Zerka, who happened last week to be visiting his hometown of Warsaw, which is why we also have producer Wojciech joining us.
Hi, Wojciech!
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Hi, hello.
KATY LEE:
So you managed to actually sit face to face opposite one of our guests for a change in real life.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, that felt really great. I just wish we could do more of these: in real life, in person. That was really fun.
KATY LEE:
It was super awkward because I was just also there on my little screen on the Internet.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yeah, you felt like a bit of an AI moderator being this digital presence, but I'm very glad you could join us.
KATY LEE:
It was still a great conversation. What do Europeans think about Europe in 2026? We were delighted to welcome Paweł Zerka back to the show to tell us about his findings. This interview was produced in collaboration with Euranet Plus.
Paweł, it's so nice to have you with us for our annual check-in.
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
Thanks for the invitation.
KATY LEE:
It's become quite an annual tradition here at the Europeans that we have you here on the show whenever there's a new European sentiment compass out. And every year you somehow manage to find a fun pop culture reference to use as the angle for your report. So last year, it was about reality TV. The year before that, it was Barbie. This year, your report is titled Future Nostalgia, Europe's Unfinished Song. And that is, of course, a reference to the second album of our favourite British-Kosovan-Albanian pop star, Dua Lipa. I should warn you that that album means a great deal to numerous members of our team, one of whom might be with us today. So that was my first question, actually. What does that album mean to you personally?
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
You know, a couple of years ago, I didn't know who Taylor Swift was.
KATY LEE:
What?
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
Yeah, I'm focused on research, on foreign affairs. Why should I care about Taylor Swift? But then I had wonderful colleagues at the Paris office of ICFR who introduced me to Taylor Swift, introduced me to Dua Lipa. Then I discovered that the world is divided between the fans of Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift. And I very quickly understood in which camp I was.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Very glad to hear that. I'm strongly camp Dua Lipa, like that's how I survived the pandemic. Mostly on Future Nostalgia. Let's dive into the report. So first of all, I think it's something that we need to fill in our listeners on is that the methodology behind the paper is very new. I was very intrigued and surprised by it. Could you tell us a bit about it and tell us why did you choose this approach?
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
Maybe let's not discuss the paper, but basically the moment Europe is currently. That's what interests me every year. How to define the moment in which Europe is finding itself. And I felt that doing this through conventional public opinion polls or through desk research, basically across the entire Europe, was somewhat insufficient. And I tried to find a different way and experiment with the method. And I managed to convince all of the partners and colleagues to try something which is called, scaringly, AI moderated interviews. And this method has only recently become useful and possible thanks to two things. One is that the AI, which means actually large language models, they have become really good at translation.
So all of those conversations that we have conducted them in six different countries that use different languages. So it was France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Netherlands and Britain. So that method allowed us to get, on the one hand, quantitative data that shows how different views get distributed across the population. So something which conventional polls normally do. But on the other hand, it offers you something which normally you would get from focus groups, but from a non representative sample of people, meaning you get the ways in which people frame their sentences, words and associations that they use when they talk about Europe. So so you don't ask closed questions, but almost entirely that the whole conversation consists of open ended questions. You ask people “OK, have there been moments when you felt proud of Europe? Had there been the moments when you felt ashamed of it? Are there leaders that somehow you would consider as inspiring in terms of how to act on Europe?” And people come up spontaneously with their recollections, with their associations, and that's so fantastic. It's super difficult to analyse because every person is different and you end up with a with a plethora of viewpoints and words and associations. But again, another AI enters into play, which helps you code all of those thousands of conversations and identify patterns.
KATY LEE:
It's really fascinating. And I guess it's too early for us to know whether people respond differently when asked the questions by an AI or by a human. But my instinct is that maybe people are more honest when they're talking to an AI about how they really feel.
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
Exactly. Some of those conversations sounded like a therapy, like people really wanted to talk to somebody. And with an AI that at least there is somebody they can trust. I also think that maybe this is a narrow window of opportunity when you can conduct a research like this. Maybe in a couple of years from now, people will stop trusting AI, will become mad at it. But when I heard for the first time about that tool, I felt it's a great way to explore also how much Europeans think about Europe at all and in what ways do they think about it.
KATY LEE:
So you conducted these AI-moderated interviews in six countries: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Can I ask what the reasoning was behind doing them in those six countries? Like, do you think that we can extrapolate from them how Europeans are feeling more broadly? Or do we need to put a kind of asterisk next to the conclusions we draw from the report? Because it is only six countries.
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
Yeah, I would always put an asterisk.
It's not a representative group of Europe in a large sense when, yeah, like the distribution across those six countries should be the same one. If you do it among all the 27 from plus Britain. But it is still representative, I feel, of the certain patterns that you can see in those countries and which realistically should be also repeated elsewhere, although perhaps in different proportions.
And in order to be sure about it, we also have done additional research, desk research in altogether 15 European countries, which kind of reaffirmed us in in the conviction that some patterns which we have observed here should be also replicable elsewhere. Ideally, I would want to conduct such research across the entire Europe, but then it will be impossible to analyse. It would be super costly, unfortunately.
So we wanted for there to be at least one newer member state, Poland, at least somebody from the south. We felt that Britain is badly needed so that we don't discuss among the EU members only. And it was clear that France and Germany had to be there.
Netherlands was kind of a black horse in that race, a country which is also a founding member, but much smaller one. And for me, which a country which can a little bit serve as a proxy for also Sweden or Denmark, some sort of a more northern perspective.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
And in the report, you divide the Europeans interviewed into four categories. Can you tell us about them?
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
Reading through those conversations, I very quickly realised that it's a trap to try to divide people into those who are pro-European or Eurosceptic, or even anti-European. Yes, there are people who are very positive about Europe. And even now, when there are so many crises, they feel most of all that this is a moment of opportunity, the one when Europe can prove itself. So we call them the positives. And yes, there is the other side of the spectrum, whom we call the negatives. People who not necessarily want Europe to be dismantled, although some of them do, but who simply gave up any hopes on this idea, who very often feel much more attached to their country rather than to Europe, but who most of all feel that Europe is going in a very wrong direction.
But there are at least two other groups which need to be taken seriously into account. One are those whom we call disconnected. About a tenth of the public across those six countries studied are those who don't really care about Europe, who say “Ah, it's part of the noise. I don't pay attention to those things.” But the crucial group, about a third across the countries, that we have studied are those whom we have described as uncertain. And they are not really like in between. It's not like they mix in equal proportions the elements of being positive and negative. I think that there is something very specific about them. Most of them feel strongly about being European, like associate themselves with Europe a lot. They can usually recall moments in which they felt proud of being European or of Europe. They have quite vivid aspirations for Europe, for it to either flourish economically ,or be united or be at peace, be strong. And in that sense, they are very similar to the positives.
But where they differ and where they are much closer to the negatives is that they almost never believe that the current moment is a one of awakening and of opportunity. They very strongly feel that European leadership is not dealing well with the challenges of the moment. The thing that I feel I spotted among them is something which I called “imagination gap”: that cognitive dissonance, where you, on the one hand, have a Europe that you would want to believe in, that you would want to flourish and prosper. But at the same time, you struggle to believe that the big dreams could be achievable.
KATY LEE:
Yeah, I found it really interesting that in the report you drew a link between this imagination gap and the way that politics in lots of countries has felt quite nostalgic in recent years. Going back to the future nostalgia title of the report, you know, politics in a lot of countries leans quite heavily now into this idea that things used to be better. Can you spell out for me what you think that has to do with what you call the imagination gap?
PAWEŁ ZERKA:
I think that a future perspective is crucial for every political entity, not just European Union, but also the US or national countries like Poland and France. You, people somehow need to be able to say where we are going and not just from where we are coming. But it concerns Europe in particular, because that whole project was based on a promise of an ever closer union. Somehow, that future perspective was crucial for people to believe that it makes sense to unite, to integrate. And also the difference between European Union, or the US, or Turkey is that if you are a European who is disappointed with the state of Europe, then you can simply conclude, “OK, actually, European Union has served its purpose, but now it's over. Let's better quit that union or let's diminish its functions. It doesn't serve the purposes of today's world.” When you are American, you cannot quit the United States. And therefore, I think that for pro-European leadership, I mean, not just those in Brussels, but also those across European capitals, it really matters, should matter whether their voters still believe in the sense of being a united Europe.
So, if you don't produce such a sense, then I think nostalgic politics in its variation with where it is focused on the past can prosper more. And especially, on the far right political forces, when you try to understand what's the ingredient of their success, one of those ingredients is that they have been successful in offering a certain prospect. Even if from my point of view, they are selling the past as the future, promising that, for example, countries in Europe could still come back to the times when they were not just successful economically, but also when there were fewer people of different origins. And that's where when that becomes scary. But I think that we can't avoid the conclusion that they are quite successful in selling their vision, whereas the pro-European side is not that successful. And it doesn't mean that the pro-Europeans aren't offering certain dreams. But I think those dreams simply are too detached from the reality. That's why so many people don't see them as believable.
[MUSIC]
KATY LEE:
So Wojciech and Dominic, I wanted to ask you when it comes to Europe, are you a positive, a negative, an uncertain or a disconnected?
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
I think I'm uncertain. I wish all the best for Europe, but then I really, I struggle with this phenomenon that Paweł dubbed as imagination gap. It's sometimes hard for me to understand how would we get to a place where Europe could really, you know, help us solve all this crisis and protect us against all those external threats. So, yeah, I think I'm camp uncertain.
KATY LEE:
Me too. I honestly, I felt like I've never seen anyone articulate how I feel about something as well as this. It was crazy. So, yeah, we have two uncertains. Dominic?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Well, I mean, according to Paweł's way of dividing us up, I guess I am officially uncertain, but I really don't feel like that term helps to describe how I feel at the moment. I do feel like fully negative.
KATY LEE:
Oh, great.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
But I'm just I'm not in the sense that I'm like voting for the far right. And I've got this. I don't have any anti-migrant sentiment, but
KATY LEE:
Good to know.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I just feel pretty certain, actually, that our best days are behind us.
KATY LEE:
Should we carry on making this podcast?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, because we need to try and like save what we can. But like fascism, AI, climate change. It's I think it's a bit naive to think that things are going to get better.
KATY LEE:
Well, I'm looking forward to another decade of cheery podcasts with you.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
With grumpy old me. Prove me wrong. I'm also someone who really believes that expectation management for myself. I really love expecting the worst and being surprised when things are better. It's my anxious mind.
KATY LEE:
I'm very interested to hear like what the bulk of the listeners to this podcast, what category they fall into. So please do take a look at the report and let us know which one you are. Are you a positive, a negative and uncertain or a disconnected? It feels a bit like a fun BuzzFeed quiz circa 2010. We loved talking to Paweł. In fact, we loved talking to him so much that Wojciech and I carried on talking to him for way too long. And since it wouldn't all fit into this podcast, we thought we would save a good chunk of that conversation as bonus content for our supporters. So if you support the show and you're signed up to our secret podcast feed, you will find that extra bit of the interview right there in the feed. Before we move on to the inspiration station, a little announcement. You're actually not the only person who gets to see Paweł in real life, Wojciech.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Oh, really?
KATY LEE:
Because I am delighted to be hosting a chat with Paweł in Brussels on Monday night, Monday, September the 28th. It is going to be a great evening. Paweł is on a panel along with some other really excellent speakers to discuss the whole concept of how Europeans feel about Europe right now. This is going to be hosted at La Tricoterie, which is a fantastic cultural space. And it's hosted by New Frames, who organise these brilliant nights that combine really interesting talks with film screenings. So after the discussion, we're all going to sit down and watch Raoul Peck's critically acclaimed documentary about George Orwell from last year: 2+2=5 .Do you want to come and hang out with me and Paweł?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yes.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
Yes, definitely.
KATY LEE:
Both of you can apply because the kind people at New Frames have given us one pair of tickets to attend for free. So if you live in Brussels and you're free on Monday night, email us with tickets in the subject line if you want to come along. First person to email us gets the tickets. But we will also put in the show notes a link for where you can actually buy tickets.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
And actually, Katy, this is a bit unconventional because usually we now have a jingle and then we go into the inspiration station. But I have another event to recommend for Monday night with another Polish man who...
KATY LEE:
They are having a moment.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
...has just been talking. And that is because Wojciech Oleksiak is going to be performing in The Hague. At the National Theatre.
KATY LEE:
Performing? Is he DJing?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
He is doing something. He's going to be appearing at the National Theatre in the evening. That full disclosure just happens to be organised by my husband. But it's around the topic of post-truth democracy. And yeah, they're going to be trying to answer the questions of like, how does politics manipulate people and how do we ensure that our democracy continues to function even when powerful people in governments exert their influence over the media? So, if you're not in Brussels, but you are in the Netherlands, then why don't you come and hang out with me and Wojciech at the National Theatre on Monday night? It's going to be a participatory, somewhat theatrical evening around this big topic. And Wojciech is going to have quite a special and surprising role, I think. More about that if you come on Monday. It's in Dutch, though, so I hope your Dutch is OK, Wojciech.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
It's in Dutch? No one told me about that.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Your bits will be in English.
WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK:
I'm afraid my Dutch is limited to Doei.
KATY LEE:
Well, that will be useful for the end.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sorry for going straight into Inspiration Station. Do you have anything else to recommend, either of you?
KATY LEE:
Yeah, I've got something. I'm borrowing a recommendation from producer Morgan this week because she would like you to know that it is very important that you all listen to the new Sorcha Richardson album. If you don't know Sorcha Richardson, and I have to confess that I didn't until Morgan put me on to her. She is an Irish singer-songwriter who moved from Ireland to New York aged 18. Then she got burned out and she moved back to Ireland to Kerry in the west of Ireland. This new album of hers is inspired by that gorgeous landscape of Western Ireland. It is called Draw the Outline, and Morgan says that it is a reminder of how good it feels to put on headphones, shut out the world and sink into the world of a single singer-songwriter. Sorcha said in an interview recently that this album was heavily influenced by “long drives and walks around the peninsula where I wouldn't pass a single other person. That space allowed me to write about things that I probably had been avoiding or distracting myself from up until now.” I haven't actually been to Kerry. I think you've been, Dominic.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
I've been to Western Ireland, but not actually to Kerry.
KATY LEE:
Oh, OK. But yeah, Morgan confirms that you can kind of feel this landscape while listening to this album. And yeah, it kind of made her want to move there herself. Like I say, I wasn't familiar with Sorcha's work until this week, but I am a convert. Her music is gorgeous. I'm going to make a really lazy comparison and say that if you like Phoebe Bridgers, you will probably like Sorcha Richardson. So yeah, go and listen to this beautiful record. It is called Draw the Outline.
[MUSIC]
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Thank you to everyone for sending in your messages of support for the happy ending segment. I'm happy to say that it is alive, at least for one more week. Although I'm still waiting to hear about Katy's final judgement.
KATY LEE:
I feel like it was such a sneaky move of yours to air my grievances in last week's podcast. And also, it's not a grievance. It was an observation that the show is getting a little bit longer and maybe that's not to everyone's liking.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
We'll get back to this later. Anyway, special thanks to Monica, who wrote in via Substack to support the happy ending and also to suggest this most excellent happy ending story. Here goes. We have a happy ending from Poland this week, because last week a moose entered Warsaw Central train station. Yes, there was a moose on the loose.
KATY LEE:
A moose on the loose? How does that happen?
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Yeah, I don't know how it happened. Apparently, there are quite a lot of moose living on the outskirts of Warsaw. Anyway, he paralysed train traffic for about 80 minutes. But there was a happy ending for the moose and for Warsaw's commuters, because he was safely caught and taken to a forested area. Monica pointed out that shooting the moose would have been easier. So we should just feel proud that humanity chose for the more complicated and effortful route to save this moose interloper. I tried to get a comment from the moose himself for this happy ending, but he refused to comment.
He remains typically “moose-terious”.
KATY LEE:
Oh...
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Sorry.
KATY LEE:
So glad we're keeping this segment every week.
[MUSIC]
We will be back next week with a full-length interview episode. It's one of those guests who we just couldn't bear to cut down to fit into just one segment. Honestly, it's hard to do that every week, but next week we just figured it would be impossible. Aleksandra Przegalińska, the Polish philosopher and researcher. Honestly, one of the most interesting people out there thinking and talking about AI. It is going to be an excellent conversation. Don't you miss it. It'll be out next Thursday.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
The Europeans is made by Katy Lee, Wojciech Oleksiak, Morgan Childs, Dominic Kraemer, and as of this week, our newest member of the team, Inês Ruivo. And we make it with the European made audio editing software, Hindenburg Pro. When you're not listening to this, you can find us on another proudly European platform, Mastodon, and some less proudly non-European ones. Substack for Morgan's amazing weekly newsletter, Good Week Bad Week. Instagram for some excellent videos and scrolly, informative things. And we're on Blue Sky, even though, frankly, it's a bit too quiet over there. Wherever you'd like to hang out on the internet, come and find us.
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Have a great week, everyone. And we'll be back in your feeds next Thursday.
KATY LEE:
Bye!
DOMINIC KRAEMER:
Dag!
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