EU Scream

Legal scholar Sahar Aziz says people who identify as Muslim are often perceived in racial terms, like black and brown people, in white-dominated societies. That makes Muslims on both sides of the Atlantic the subject of similar forms of racism. She also says protecting observant Muslims in Europe may be more difficult than in the United States, where religious observance is more commonplace. In this episode: Sahar Aziz in conversation with the journalist and think tanker Shada Islam.Support the show

Was Emmanuel Macron right to talk so much with Vladimir Putin before and after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? And did Macron cross a line from well-intentioned engagement into something like naive appeasement? French journalist Guy Lagache spent the first six months of this year in close proximity to Macron, making a film that ended up focusing on the French president's Putin strategy.Support the show

Author Rafia Zakaria turned the feminist world upside down with her bestselling book Against White Feminism. White feminists, she writes, fail "to cede space to the feminists of colour who have been ignored erased or excluded from the feminist movement." In this episode Rafia talks with the Brussels-based journalist and think-tanker Shada Islam about the prevalence of white feminist thinking in Europe — and in France in particular.Support the show

Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has threatened to be a public relations disaster for hard-right gatherings like CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Previous editions featured Putin supporters — and a CPAC meeting getting underway in Budapest will feature Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who remains on highly cordial terms with the Kremlin. So what playbook can participants at CPAC — which is being held for the first time in Europe — use to put a cordon sanitaire between them and Putin?  A similar conference of National Conservatives, who met in Brussels in March, offers clues.Support the show

Would you pick up a gun and fight for Ukraine? The injustice of the Russian invasion has led white-collar professionals like Florent and Tomas to trade suits and ties for camouflage and Kalashnikovs. Florent, who is French, and Tomas, a Lithuanian, met for the first time in February at the Ukrainian embassy in Belgium. They teamed up for the trip to Ukraine and they're now back in Brussels to tell their story.Support the show

When Thomas left Brussels for Ukraine to train as a foreign fighter, he joined up with the Georgian Legion, a paramilitary group that's fought for years to stop Russian aggression. In this episode Thomas and his unit arrive in Kyiv, as part of efforts to try to stop Putin's army from taking the capital. Please note: this is a reedited version of the episode Foreign Fighter Diaries — Part 2. Listen to Part 1. Support the show

Thomas lives in Brussels. But last week, seemingly out of the blue, he upped sticks and left. He was already heading into Ukraine when he began sending his first dispatches — simple but captivating voicemails. Thomas is now in the international brigades, which are comprised of foreign fighters from all over the world. Like Thomas, many of the fighters were responding to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's call to help his country in its hour of need. And, like Thomas, they now are patrolling Ukrainian streets against Russian incursions, on Europe's new frontline.Support the show

Policy differences between Europe and Africa have been widening, and while there may be warm words about a new partnership when the leaders of the EU and African Union meet in Brussels, there are unlikely to be breakthroughs on key African demands. One area where Europeans and Africans have long seen eye-to-eye is fighting jihadists, and Europe has not hesitated to ally with African autocrats who promise a measure of stability. Could Françafrique — the French sphere of influence that outlived the end of French colonialism — still be revived on a European scale, as Eurafrique? Nick Westcott is the director of the Royal African Society in London and he was the first managing director for Africa at the EU's European External Action Service. Faten Aggad is a senior advisor at the African Climate Foundation and she was formerly a senior advisor for negotiations with the EU with the African Union High Representative in Addis Ababa. Elissa Jobson is director for global advocacy at the International Crisis Group and she was previously the group’s main liaison with the African Union. The Open Society European Policy Institute partnered with EU Scream in making this episode.Support the show

Europe is green. Europe is humane. Europe has defeated populism. These views are common among the EU chattering classes. But they often seem more reflexive than reflective, and some of them amount to shibboleths — beliefs that are outmoded or no longer as useful as they once may have been. In this episode Mehreen Khan of the Financial Times unpacks the European shibboleths that rank among her favourites. Past episodes with Mehreen feature her commentary on race and strategic autonomy; her clairvoyant take on French President Emmanuel Macron's ugly side; and her own brush with his policies on Islam. Support the show

Freedom of information. Openness. Access to documents. These are names for laws people can use to ask authorities to share information and records. The European Union adopted its access regulation at the turn of this century. But as work went digital, the access rules have failed to keep pace. A lot still goes unrecorded. Or it goes unregistered, and can't be accessed easily, if at all. "There are very important pieces of information that are not coming out," says European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly. The EU access regulation was part of efforts to build public trust. But lax enforcement may be exacerbating the very narrative the EU is seeking to overcome — that it's an elitist and unaccountable political project. Also in this episode: tax expert Martijne Nouwen on the mass deletion of European Commission emails; and journalist Alexander Fanta on messages about vaccine contracts on Ursula von der Leyen's phone.Support the show