How would Europe's €800 billion defence plan actually work?

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 274 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Europe is set to spend an eye-wateringly huge amount of money on building up its militaries over the next few years, after That Guy In The White House signalled he's no longer that interested in helping us defend ourselves against Russia. But where is all this money supposed to come from? And does it matter if some countries are more enthusiastic about this plan than others? This week we call defence expert Marina Henke to figure out what this spending bonanza actually involves. We're also talking about a Czech-led plan to save Radio Free Europe from Trump's cuts, and why ChatGPT falsely accused a Norwegian man of murder. Marina is a professor of international Relations at the Hertie School in Berlin and director of the Centre for International Security. You can follow her on Bluesky here. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy our podcasts, we'd love it if you'd consider supporting our work. 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'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast! This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. This week's Inspiration Station recommendations: 'And Then We Danced' and The Bittersweet Life. Other resources for this week's episode 'Trump’s decision to cut Radio Free Europe comes at a great cost to democracy' - Muhammad Tahir, editorial for MSNBC, March 24, 2025 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-voice-of-america-radio-free-europe-rcna197367 'Malfunction: the Hungarian Radio (Silence) on Chernobyl' - Archivum, April 26, 2021 https://www.archivum.org/entries/blog/malfunction-the-hungarian-radio-silence-on-chernobyl 'EU privacy body weighs in on some tricky GenAI lawfulness questions' - TechCrunch, December 18, 2024 https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/18/eu-privacy-body-weighs-in-on-some-tricky-genai-lawfulness-questions/ The EU's White Paper for European Defence: Readiness 2030 - March 19, 2025 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_793 00:34 Deep breath: it's time for another episode of The Europeans04:47 Good Week: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty18:41 Bad Week: The Norwegian man who ChatGPT falsely accused of murder31:41 Interview: Marina Henke on Europe's huge new defence plan56:23 The Inspiration Station: 'And Then We Danced' and 'The Bittersweet Life'59:45 Happy Ending: Petko Gantsjev Is Very Much Alive Producers: Morgan Childs and Wojciech OleksiakMixing and mastering: Wojciech OleksiakMusic: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Euronet Plus, the leading radio network for EU News. Hello and welcome to the Europeans podcast, your friendly, slightly nerdy guide to everything going on across Europe.
0:42.2	My name is Dominic Kramer. I'm speaking to you from Amsterdam.
0:45.3	And I've got Katie Lee down the line in Paris. Hi, Katie.
0:49.6	And it's my turn to be late this week. How stressful.
0:53.0	What's going on?
0:54.1	It's contagious. I don't know what's
0:55.6	going on, but I'm very glad you're here with your heavy breathing. Do you want to tell listeners
1:02.8	about that? Yeah, so there's this weird thing with the new way we're recording. And some reason
1:09.2	it's picking up Katie's breathing a lot.
1:11.6	And our producers keep having to mute her because all the time you hear
1:15.5	in the background.
1:19.1	It's because I'm recording in an air that's cupboard.
1:21.7	There isn't enough oxygen in here.
1:23.4	I need the air to go to my brain or I can't carry on talking.
1:27.1	Sure.
1:27.9	But listeners, I hope you'll be spared of it again by a lovely producers.
1:30.8	Thank you, producers.
1:32.0	Yes.
1:32.7	Thank you, Morgan and Vytec.
1:34.1	I actually wanted to start this week's episode by recruiting our listeners for a bit of mass investigation.
1:39.1	Oh, go on.
1:40.0	We got a lovely email from a listener called Stephanie in Germany,
	...

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