Democratic salami and boiling frogs

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 274 Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Between Elon Musk's meddling and Romania's election rollercoaster, the state of Europe's democracies feels a little scary at the start of 2025. This week we talk to Tom Theuns, author of a new book about Europe's failure to stop the slow slide towards autocracy so far and what we can do to fix it. Tom is a senior assistant professor of political theory and European politics at Leiden University. You can find out all about his book, 'Protecting Democracy in Europe', here, and follow him on Bluesky here. This week's Inspiration Station recommendations: 'My Favourite Cake' and 'La Chimera'. Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcasts, we'd love it if you'd consider supporting our work in 2025. You can chip in to help us cover the weekly research and production of The Europeans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (many currencies are available), or gift a donation to a super fan here. We're also crowdfunding our new series, 'Who Does It Best?', which will delve into the most imaginative policies around Europe. We're 96% of the way there! You can find out all about our plans for the series, and help us start making it, at https://4fund.com/z/europeanspodcast. Other resources for this episode: Double Dutch on Instagram and TikTok Ada Colau's amazing Instagram post Producers: Katy Lee and Wojciech Oleksiak Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina 00:23 The headwinds of 202502:48 Bad Week: Fireworks11:50 Good Week: Greenland's pro-independence movement22:31 Interview: Tom Theuns on protecting Europe's democracies38:01 The Inspiration Station: 'My Favourite Cake' and 'La Chimera'43:13 Happy Ending: Ada Colau's amazing Instagram post Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Europeans, the podcast about the large and ever more complicated continent that we call home.
0:30.2	It's messy, but we like it here.
0:32.2	This is Katie in Paris, where 2025 has got off to a very windy start.
0:36.9	And as always, on the other end of the internet in Amsterdam, it's my friend Dominic Kramer.
0:41.2	Hi, Dominic.
0:41.9	Hi, Katie. It's windy here too. I feel a bit shoved around by 2025 so far, to be honest.
0:47.0	Oh, what a metaphor. Isn't that just the Netherlands, though? Windy all the time.
0:50.9	All right, yes.
0:52.2	There's that competition isn't there on that island for cycling into the wind or something.
0:57.0	It's true.
0:58.0	There is.
0:59.0	It is famously windy and flat.
1:01.0	But happy New Year, Katie.
1:03.0	Happy New Year.
1:04.0	Did you have a good break?
1:05.0	Yeah, I did.
1:06.0	I had a great Christmas, although it feels like quite a long time ago now.
1:10.0	But yeah, I love Christmas. I know.
1:11.9	That's kind of not popular to say. Basic. But I find it just great. I also just love stopping
1:18.0	working for a bit. That is nice. I'm glad you got to do that because it's not very often that
1:22.4	you do. No, it's true. I deliberately made it happen this year and I'm glad I didn't. And I feel healthy. It's the beginning of January and I'm well and I think you are almost well as well, which never happens.
1:32.1	I am enjoying this two-day window of feeling relatively healthy where my nose is working properly.
	...

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