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In today’s episode of Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director at ILGA Europe. Katrin warns that, in Europe, we still don’t have the necessary laws in place that protect the LGBTI community and laws are very often the last line of defence of LGBTI people.
The LGBTI community is usually a target of the far-right, being used as a scapegoat, and this year’s European elections were no exception. From Hungary to Italy, the examples are many but, surprisingly, France stands as a sign of hope. Why is that? Even though Katrin is concerned about the upcoming elections, she reminds us that just a few months ago, France enshrined the right to abortion in its constitution.
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On the week the World Refugee Day is commemorated, host Catarina Vila Nova spoke with Jonathan Fowler, Senior Communications Manager for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Jonathan joined UNRWA shortly after the 7 October attacks and is currently based in East Jerusalem. What he details is an intense campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli authorities. But nowhere is this situation more egregious than in the Gaza Strip.
As Jonathan calls it, “it is a war of superlatives” and at no point in the history of the United Nations have so many UN personnel been killed in a war. The staff UNRWA employs in Gaza are local staff and are themselves refugees.
During this episode of Policy Voices, Jonathan tells their stories. Like the story of a sanitation engineer who lost his family and kept showing up for work to prevent a worsening health situation in his community.
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It wasn’t as bad as every poll predicted but, nonetheless, ¼ of the next European Parliament will be made up of, to put it mildly, “parties that are difficult to qualify under one label”. As Alberto Alemanno, Jean Monnet Professor in EU Law at HEC Paris and Founder of the Good Lobby, says, in this episode of Policy Voices hosted by Catarina Vila Nova, “far-right does not do justice to all of them”. Some are “nationalist”, others “sovereigntist”, and others yet are “rebellious vis-à-vis the European process”. Clearly not the ideal composition for a European Parliament. The good news? “They tend to be disunited but they’re not going to be able to form a majority or come together as a group. This weakens their ability to influence as much as they could”, predicts Alemanno.
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In the fifth and final episode of the five-part special series of Policy Voices on the EU elections, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with representatives from five parties on the key issue of the EU budget and the cost of living. In this episode, you will hear from Siegfried Mureșan, MEP for the European People’s Party, Didrik de Schaetzen, Secretary-General of the ALDE Party, Giacomo Filibeck, Secretary-General of the Party of European Socialists, Simon McKeagney, Head of Communications of The Greens, and David Lundy, Head of Communications of The Left.
If you want to comment on this episode you can send us an e-mail. Our address is [email protected]. -
In this fourth episode of the five-part special series of Policy Voices on the EU elections, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with representatives from five parties on the key issue of migration and fundamental rights. In this episode, you will hear from Lena Düpont, MEP for the European People’s Party, Didrik de Schaetzen, Secretary-General of the ALDE Party, Giacomo Filibeck, Secretary-General of the Party of European Socialists, Simon McKeagney, Head of Communications of The Greens, and David Lundy, Head of Communications of The Left.
If you want to comment on this episode you can send us an e-mail. Our address is [email protected]. -
In this third episode of the five-part special series of Policy Voices on the EU elections, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with representatives from five parties on the key issue of climate change. In this episode, you will hear from Peter Liese, MEP for the European People’s Party, Didrik de Schaetzen, Secretary-General of the ALDE Party, Giacomo Filibeck, Secretary-General of the Party of European Socialists, Simon McKeagney, Head of Communications of The Greens, and David Lundy, Head of Communications of The Left.
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In the second episode of the five-part special series of Policy Voices on the EU elections, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with representatives from five parties on the key issue of artificial intelligence. In this episode, you will hear from Didrik de Schaetzen, Secretary-General of the ALDE Party, Giacomo Filibeck, Secretary-General of the Party of European Socialists, Simon McKeagney, Head of Communications of The Greens, David Lundy, Head of Communications of The Left, and Axel Voss, MEP for the European People’s Party.
If you want to comment on this episode you can send us an e-mail. Our address is [email protected]. -
In this first episode of the five-part special series of Policy Voices on the EU elections, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with representatives from five parties on the key issue of European security and defence. In this episode, you will hear from Rasa Juknevičienė, MEP for the European People’s Party, Didrik de Schaetzen, Secretary-General of the ALDE Party, Giacomo Filibeck, Secretary-General of the Party of European Socialists, Simon McKeagney, Head of Communications of The Greens, and David Lundy, Head of Communications of The Left.
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In today’s episode, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former secretary-general of NATO. According to Scheffer, as long as Russia is engaging in war with Ukraine, Ukraine has no chance of joining the military alliance. This means no formal invitation to join in the upcoming NATO’s July Summit in Washington.
The former NATO chief spoke candidly about Ukraine’s slim chances of joining the military alliance that were first put on the table in 2008, during the Bucharest Summit, when Scheffer was then NATO’s chief. Looking back on that period, Scheffer admits that it wasn’t “NATO’s finest hour” because it made a promise to Ukraine that it knew it could not deliver.
Scheffer now warns the European Union to not follow the same path of NATO as talks to kickstart formal negotiations over Ukraine joining the EU are set to start as soon as next month.
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On this episode of Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks to Julia Symon, Head of Research and Advocacy at Finance Watch, and Luke O’Callaghan White, Programme Manager for Climate, Energy and Sustainability at Friends of Europe. Friends of Europe recently launched a report on the EU’s sustainable finance agenda. Long gone are the days when tackling climate change was the number one priority of the Commission. With war raging in the continent, priorities have shifted from climate change to security. But as Luke, the co-author of the report, argues, there are immense benefits the EU can amass if it ditches this short-term mentality and starts focusing on long-term climate goals.
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On World Press Freedom Day, host Catarina Vila Nova spoke to Jonathan Dagher, Head of the Middle East Desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF). At least 100 journalists have died since the war in Gaza began, 22 during the course of their work. RSF has been monitoring and reporting the crimes being perpetrated against reporters in Gaza which Dagher describes as “systemic” and an attack on journalism as a whole.
Jonathan Dagher recently returned from Doha where he met with Palestinian journalists who escaped from Gaza and told their tales of being targeted by Israel. What Dagher described is a pattern of impunity with journalists facing the unimaginable situation of covering the deaths of their family members, friends and colleagues.
On World Press Freedom Day, we wanted to dedicate this episode of Policy Voices to the journalists in Gaza reporting a war while seeking shelter, water and food.
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Today in our show we wanted to do something different. Instead of our usual interview, we want to play the speech Alexander Stubb, the Finnish President, gave recently at Friends of Europe during his trip to Brussels where he met with Ursula von der Leyen, Jens Stoltenberg, among others. Before that, he had been in Ukraine where he encountered President Zelenskyy.
The Finnish President spoke freely, openly and candidly about Finland’s place in NATO, European defence at large, and how the EU and NATO must work together. As he put it: “National defence and international cooperation can and must go hand in hand. It is not either or. It is both.” On Ukraine, Stubb’s message couldn’t be clearer: “Ukraine’s place is as a full member of NATO and progress towards membership is irreversible”.
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The first Citizens Global Assembly took place around COP26 in Glasgow and it provided a true snapshot of what humanity looks like. It was co-initiated by Jamie Kelsey and kickstarted because of climate change but its potential goes beyond this single issue. By bringing people together from truly diverse backgrounds it can be a solution to the polarised world we live in today. That’s why host Catarina Vila Nova spoke to Jamie Kelsey, from the Citizens Global Assembly, for the third and last episode of this series on the rise of the far-right in Europe.
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In this second episode of the three-part series on the rise of the far-right in Europe, we want to zoom in on Germany. With its history, surely Germany would be more immune to the far-right movement but this is clearly not the case.
That’s why on this episode of Policy Voices host Catarina Vila Nova spoke to Kristina Krömer and Dario de la Rosa from metro_polis. Born in Dresden and expanded to Leipzig, metro_polis realised that the tram was the perfect place to kickstart conversations about people’s problems and why not climate change and the return to dictatorship as well.
Kristina and Dario have been doing this work for a few years now and they tell how they noticed a change in the discourse of the people they encounter on the trams. But also how all it takes sometimes is to spend a few minutes with someone to get to the bottom of the issue.
If you want to comment on this episode you can send us an e-mail. Our address is [email protected]. -
If recent elections in The Netherlands, Slovakia and Portugal taught us anything is that the far-right is making serious gains across the continent and is a force to be reckoned with. With only two months to go before the entire union heads to the polls, we at Friends of Europe felt that it was necessary to dedicate some time to this movement.
Yes, we understand the rise of the far-right as a threat to democracy itself. Yes, we believe it should be fought. And that is why we are bringing you a three-part series on the rise of the far-right across Europe starting today.
In today’s episode of Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova is joined by Daphne Halikiopoulou, Chair in Comparative Politics at the University of York, and an expert on the far-right. In just 30 minutes, we condensed Daphne’s life’s work as we answered the question: how did we get here? Perhaps more ominously, are we back to where we were a century ago?
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We knew it already that this year was set to be dominated by wins of the far-right across the board. The Netherlands set the scene in the end of last year with the victory of far-right populist Geert Wilders and Portugal continued the trend when it recently elected 50 – yes, 50 – far-right members of parliament in the year it celebrates as many years of democracy.
As we are approaching the pivotal moment of the European elections, we want to dedicate some time exploring the rise of the far-right in Europe. We want to answer how did we get here and how do we solve this? So bear with us as we put together these series which will come to you already from next week.
And now more than ever, we want to hear from you: do you know of any activist or organisation that is actively working to combat the rise of far-right in Europe? Think small-scale community projects working to deconstruct the harmful narratives of the far-right movement. It can be anything from working with migrants and refugees, to fighting against hate towards the LGBTQ+ community, misinformation…
If you know of anyone that we should speak to get in touch with us. Our address is [email protected].
In the meantime, and because the next episodes are not going to be the most cheerful we have done, we want to take a step back and re-run our first episode of 2024. We want to take you to space with us with astrophysicist Guillem Anglada-Escudé. He spoke with Rayan Vugdalic, Programme Officer for the Making Space Matter Initiative at Friends of Europe. -
Host Catarina Vila Nova sat down with Irene Fellin, NATO’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels shortly after her return from her second trip to Ukraine. What she describes – the lack of body armour tailored for women – is just one very practical example of why NATO still needs a special representative for women, peace and security.
The start of Fellin’s tenure as NATO’s special representative for women, peace and security came mere weeks before Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine. What had until then been a decade of crisis management quickly turned into NATO’s core tasks of deterrence and defence.
But how does one get to become NATO’s special representative for women, peace and security? For Irene Fellin, it was not an obvious path. She describes how, being a wife of a diplomat, she found herself trapped in gender stereotypes and expectations and how she had to fight for her career. The rest is history…
Irene Fellin also answered if she would be disappointed if her next boss would be another man and what legacy she hopes to leave for her twins in this episode of Policy Voices.
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In the year Portugal celebrates 50 years of democracy, it elected almost as many far-right MPs to the national parliament. Sunday’s elections saw the end of eight years of socialist rule with the social democrats coming first but by an extremely slim margin.
In this episode of Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova spoke to Ana Gomes, former MEP for the Socialists and Democrats. Ana Gomes painted Sunday’s elections as a choice for or against the ruling Socialist Party who was castigated by voters for not solving a critical housing problem, persistently low wages and lack of opportunities for the younger generations.
With only three months to go until the European elections, Portugal stands as a warning sign to the rest of Europe of the gains the far-right is set to make across the continent.
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Exactly two years ago, on International Women’s Day, the European Commission proposed a EU Directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence. This new initiative was groundbreaking because, for the first time, it was proposing a common definition of rape based on consent but, in the end, the justice ministers of France and Germany blocked the inclusion of this clause.
The European Women’s Lobby has been advocating for a EU-wide legislation tackling violence against women for decades and finally, such legislation is in the final steps of approval. On International Women’s Day, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with Irene Rosales, Policy and Campaigns Officer at the European Women’s Lobby, about the significance of this EU directive.
Although not including the consent-based definition of rape is considered a “missed opportunity”, among other clauses that didn’t make it to the final version, Rosales still highlights how important this directive is, as the first comprehensive legal instrument at the EU level to tackle violence against women, as she explains in this episode of Policy Voices.
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As the guardian of future generations, Derek Walker has to look ahead much more than any other politician. The job of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales is to protect and promote the needs of future generations which means that most of his constituents are not born yet.
Derek Walker has been the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales for exactly one year now. He started his seven-year mandate on March 1, 2023. In this episode of Policy Voices, Derek Walker spoke with Thomas Van Vynckt, Program Manager at Friends of Europe, about the lessons learned in his first year and what it means to be the guardian of future generations. - もっと表示する