Small Ex-Soviet Satellite State My Ass

This week, we're heading to a small country with a big bold foreign policy. Czechia, aka the Czech Republic, has won international praise by negotiating a desperately-needed ammunition deal for Ukraine. Why did it succeed where others have failed? And why is its government so much less scared of China than most others in Europe? We ring up Jakub Janda, Czech security expert and author of a certain viral tweet, to find out. We're also talking about a glimmer of hope for some of Italy's rainbow families, and the scandal rocking Finnish journalism.

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Jakub is the director of the European Values Center for Security Policy. You can find him on Twitter here.

Resources for this episode:
European Tree of the Year https://www.treeoftheyear.org/

Aamulehti's apology for Matti Kuusela's dabblings in fiction https://www.aamulehti.fi/uutiset/art-2000010312503.html

Jakub's viral tweet https://twitter.com/_jakubjanda/status/1769350483695522197?s=46&t=yPKV1bu1u0kKSIiRrTkIXg

00:22 Once more with feeling
03:19 Good Week: Padua's rainbow families
09:35 Bad Week: When fact meets fiction in Finland
19:52 Interview: Jakub Janda on 'small ex-Soviet satellite states' and Czechia's bold foreign policy
36:51 Inspiration Station: A tree scandal special edition
41:14 Happy Ending: Germany's extra-relaxed Easter Monday

Producers: Katy Lee and Wojciech Oleksiak

Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

INTRODUCTION – 00’22” 

DOMINIC: Okay. From the beginning again?

KATY: This time I'm recording. Hi Dominic!

D: Hi.

K: How long have you been making this podcast?

D: Yeah. I don’t know.

K: We just recorded a full intro for you listeners, but my microphone was off. So let's take it from the top. Welcome to The Europeans.

D: Your weekly dose of stories from across this complicated continent we call home.

K: I'm Katy Lee in Paris, who are you? Put some energy into it? 

D: I’m Dominic Kraemer, an opera singer living in Amsterdam that knows how to turn my microphone on.

K: Oh, aren't we professional.How are you, Dominic? We've had a week off.

D: I'm fine.

K: Are you feeling refreshed and revived?

D: No, I definitely didn't have a week off from my singing career. But I do have a week off this week other than the podcast. So I'm feeling very excited about the coming Easter weekend and enjoying the brighter weather.

K: Yeah, it's nice and springy here in Paris as well. It's sort of been alarmingly nice. I feel like climate change has really robbed me of the ability to ever enjoy warm weather without feeling anxious about it. But now it's back to being cold and sunny, which is much more appropriate for March, so I'm pretty happy about that.

D: Very appropriate. Amidst this lovely sunny weather, I saw some pictures of waiters running through the streets of Paris with full trays in a kind of organised croissant race.

K: Yeah! 

D: Were you there? And if not, why not?

K: I wasn't there sadly. It’s this quite fun race where waiters have to carry a tray with a cup of coffee, a glass of water and a croissant on it for two kilometres. Very impressive. I wasn't there because I was actually at the very famous Bouillon restaurant, which is a famous cheap eat in Paris. There's four or five of them, I think, across Paris. And if you want sort of very classic bistro fare for very, very reasonable prices in Paris, that's the place to go. And the waiters there are very, very good at handling these hugely laden trays with like six main courses and four bowls of like profiteroles and tarte tatin on them. Super impressive. 

D: And it's not just a bowl of bouillon you get?

K: It's not just a stock cube that you get, no. Very good food. A recommended stop for anyone visiting this beautiful town of mine. But heavily laden trays aside, what have we got coming up on the show this week?

D: This week, we're heading to Czechia or the Czech Republic, where the government has been receiving a lot of international praise for arranging an extraordinary delivery of much-needed ammunition to Ukraine source from outside the EU. We're going to be speaking to the Czech security policy expert Jakub Janda about how this came togethe,r and about the rather weird way in which this story was reported on by the Wall Street Journal. More on that later. But first, it's time for Good Week, Bad Week.

GOOD WEEK - 03’19”

K: Who's had a good week, Dominic?

D: It's been a good week for same-sex parents in the city of Padua in northern Italy. after a court rejected the policy of removing non-biological mothers from birth certificates of kids who have two mothers listed. I actually talked about this birth certificate upheaval in Italy almost exactly a year ago, so I wanted to come back to it today, seeing as there has been a glimmer of good news, at least locally, for 37 rainbow families affected in Padua. When I talked about this topic last time, it was because the mayor of Milan had failed to block Giorgia Meloni’s government from stripping same-sex parents of their parental rights. It's really been a horror story for same-sex parents in Italy since Meloni’s government came into power in October 2022 and soon after, banned city councils from registering same-sex parents on birth certificates. But things were particularly bad in Padua, where they not only stopped registering new same-sex parents on birth certificates, but a prosecutor also started removing mothers from already existing birth certificates of children with birthdays dating as far back as 2017, if the child had two mothers listed.

K: So those kids, did they just get given new birth certificates?

D: Well, the parents received letters in the post telling them that the non-gestational mother would have her name removed from her child's birth certificate and a new, revised certificate would be issued. One mother told the Daily Mail that she cried for 10 days when she received that letter. She said, ‘It was as if I don't exist.’ Alessandro Zan, a centre-left parliamentarian from Padua and LGBT activist, said of this decision from the Paduan prosecutor's office: ‘These children are being orphaned by decree.’ And I'm coming back to this story, partly because there's been a glimmer of good news, which I'll talk about a bit more in a bit, but also because amidst all these think pieces about how Giorgia Meloni, quote unquote, ‘isn't as extreme as we thought she was going to be’, it's important to realise how extreme a policy like this is, and also how unnecessary it seems to be. I don't know how she could argue that this emotional and practical upheaval for families is in the kid's interest, a decision she makes simply because their birth certificate doesn't state a man and a woman on it. All it does is it creates terrible uncertainty, especially in the case of family crises. In the worst case, if the biological mother dies, then a non-gestational mother would potentially have no rights over her child.

K: Right.

D: If the child is sick in hospital, a hospital could refuse access to one of the parents to their child. Schools can ban the parent from collecting their child without explicit written permission from the other parent from the parent who gave birth to the child. How is any of this protecting the child? To the child, the two women bringing them up are just simply their parents. But the decision is clearly deeply ideologically rooted. Meloni has said in the past, ‘I do not believe in a state that places the legitimate desire of a homosexual to adopt a child before the right of that child to have a father and a mother.’ And as we've discussed before on this podcast, there are countless studies that have researched outcomes for children in rainbow families compared to those with two heterosexual parents. And study after study shows that there is no statistical difference in the emotional, social or educational development of a child.

K: Dominic, this isn't the cheeriest Good Week, are we going to get to the good bit?

D: Yes, apologies. Amidst this policy from Meloni and her rightwing pals, this time, one year after I last talked about the policy, there is this glimmer of hope I mentioned for same-sex parents in Padua, because the Paduan court ruled that the authorities cannot simply remove the name of the parent from the child's birth certificate.

K: Good job, court. But also, good job to whoever brought this case, I'm assuming? Who did bring it?

D: The case was actually brought forward by the city of Padua itself against Meloni's government, because the mayor of Padua is pretty strongly backing these rainbow families and their right to exist legally. Even if Italian law doesn't currently really help. And that is an important bit of context. Those same-sex civil unions were legalised in Italy in 2016. No provision was made for same-sex parents adopting, so getting two women onto a birth certificate has been a bit of a legally tricky thing that was either done via civil lawsuits, or certain city municipalities run by leftwing parties were finding a kind of loophole way to register same-sex parents on birth certificates. So despite this win in the courtroom, leftwing politicians are clear: the law actually needs to change to help these parents. This is something that the Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein immediately came out with after the ruling in Padua, she demanded: ‘Pass a law that recognises equal dignity to all families.’ Sadly, that's not very likely to happen whilst Meloni is in power, though.

K: But for now I'm hoping that this court ruling in Padua would give these rainbow families in Padua some sense of security at least? 

D: The court ruling is good for parents in Padua, but it doesn't yet give them the security and certainty they need, as the interior ministry have already announced they're gonna appeal this ruling. And a similar ruling was actually overturned in Milan over the past year. But this is an important first step. And these parents have a lot of international support, there were actually protests in London outside the Italian embassy last year when the policy was first announced, and the European Parliament condemned the policy of Meloni's government. So it's still a battle that needs fighting, but one of the lesbian mothers affected said to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica: ‘The road will be long, but today we celebrate for our daughter.’

K: Aww. 

BAD WEEK - 09’35”

D: Who's had a bad week, Katy?

K: I'm gonna give Bad Week to a Finnish journalist called Matti Kuusela. Kuusela recently celebrated his retirement after a long and illustrious career working for Aamulehti, which is a big newspaper based out of the city of Tampere. And Kusela had been very much a star reporter at this paper. He worked there for 40 years, and he won a bunch of awards for his reporting, which was known for its humanity and its beautiful, lyrical style of prose. And its seriousness too, I should add, Kuusela had won prizes for investigative journalism, as well as holding the state to account. Kuusela didn't let the fact of his retirement get in the way of his writing career. He's only 68, plenty of good writing years ahead. And so he celebrated his retirement by publishing his memoir last week, a colourful account of his years travelling the globe as a reporter, and all the interesting people he's met along the way.

D: Sounds great. 

K: Yeah!

D: Where's the bad?

K: Where's the bad week? Well, there was just one problem with his memoir. For reasons that will ultimately remain known only to Kuusela himself, he decided to be totally upfront in his memoir about the fact that he occasionally enjoyed just making stuff up. 

D: Oh. 

K: And he talks about three specific examples of doing this in his memoir. One of them was a random story about commuting to work by rowing boat, in which he decided to just make up the name of a Swedish author, and throw it into the story as a side detail. He mentioned in the article that he's reading a book called ‘Boatman’ by Per-Olov Ekelöfin. Ekelöfin doesn't exist! And the crazy thing is that even though it was really not relevant to the story, this journalist just made up a whole plot for this non-existent novel, and quoted from it at length. Utterly bizarre.

D: And no one noticed?! 

K: No one noticed. So I have questions for the sub-editor, who, first of all, really should have been, you know, Googling that sort of thing to make sure that he spelled the name of the author correctly, for example.

D: Was it pre-Google? 

K: No, that was in 2017. So, really not that long ago. 

D: Oh. 

K: So that was the first example. He also admitted in the memoir that he had invented an encounter he'd had with a famous Finnish poet called Eeva-Liisa Mannerin. And the third one is where Kuusela goes full Marco Polo and starts making things up about his travels in Central Asia. Kuusela wrote a beautiful series of travel reports from Uzbekistan, I believe they were award winning, in fact. And in at least one of those articles, he just made up a bunch of conversations with people that he'd met in Uzbekistan. And he talked about this openly in his memoir.

D: Why would he admit to this? I mean, why would he do it, firstly, and then why would he admit to it?

K: Why would he do it? The best explanation I can find is that he did it for fun. He writes in the memoir: ‘When I was younger, I used to use a little imagination and playfulness, and slip some good-natured fiction into a factual story.’ That definitely seems to be what he was doing when he invented the Swedish novel and slipped it into an article. Like, it's almost like he was daring the news editor who was on duty that day to Google it and see that it didn't exist. And he got away with it, which suggests that whoever was editing Kuusela that day wasn't doing a great job. With the invented meeting with the famous poet, it's a little bit different. He wrote in the memoir, ‘If a story is repeated long enough, you start to believe it yourself, and it almost becomes true.’ So in that case, it seems more like he'd invented the story for himself and it had basically become a memory.

D: Have any of his former editors or bosses at the newspaper responded to this bombshell?

K: Oh yeah, they have been having a total freakout. I mean, this guy was their star reporter. His writing was incredibly popular. And now here he is, after his retirement, admitting voluntarily that his reporting contained invented facts and people. So his former editors are sitting there thinking, ‘Okay, Kuusela says that he used to make up stuff fairly often when he was younger. He has a huge archive of articles that he's written for us over the last four decades. Just how many of them do contain completely invented facts? So the newspaper decided to do something quite extraordinary. They decided to remove 551 articles written by Kuusela over the years from their website.

D: Is that all of them, or have some of them managed to survive this cull?

K: Well, that's the really interesting thing. The paper decided to leave up on the site, the articles that they know to be false, with a disclaimer at the top in this like italic font, essentially saying, since the publication of this article, it has been brought to our attention that this article contains some degree of bullshit. I mean, it's quite a surreal experience, reading these disclaimers and then reading these very colourful works of what we now know to be semi-fiction. Like, even if you don't read Finnish and you put them through Google Translate, they're very entertaining and beautiful to read. And it might seem like a strange decision on the newspaper’s part, to take everything down but then leave these ones there, knowing what they know. 

D: Yeah.

K: But I actually think that was totally the right call. This is a serious crisis for a newspaper whose readers expect as the most basic thing that what they read in the paper should be based on facts. You cannot have articles that sprinkle in invented novelists and nonexistent interviewees mixed in among the true stuff. Like, how is anyone supposed to believe anything they read if that's the case? And leaving the articles that they know to contain falsehoods there, with a note on them explaining what happened, I think that's actually a way more transparent way of dealing with this than just removing them along with all of Kuusela’s other articles. The paper's editor-in-chief Sanna Keskinen, she apologised to the readers and she said, ‘This has no place in journalism.’ And the paper is continuing to sift its way through the huge number of articles that Kuusela wrote over the years. So far, it says that there don't seem to be any signs of falsehoods in the news stories that Kuusela wrote about serious social issues. But it has found made-up elements in several stories beyond the ones that he wrote about in his book.

D: What a waste of energy for them all, now having to like retroactively go through all these articles and fact-check every single thing. That must be such a weird job to be doing just for the sake of archived articles.

K: Right? I mean, they should be spending their time investigating stuff that local authorities are doing, stuff that the government is doing, and instead they're having to investigate their own former staff member. It's really exhausting.

D: What does he have to say for himself, since this is all blown up? Has he apologised?

K: That's the other extraordinary thing about this story. Kuusela thinks that this whole thing is an absurd overreaction. And he is completely unapologetic about it. He told Yle, the national broadcaster, that he had a totally clear conscience, and that whenever he made things up, it was as a quote, stylistic device. He also said that he believed that readers understood that there were invented elements in his reporting for stylistic effect. Which I have to say I find quite baffling as a defence. Like, I don't know why readers should be expected to be in his head the whole time. 

D: Yeah. 

K: …. And know which bits were slipped in as fiction. And it's quite interesting, while I was reading about this case, I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole and started reading about other infamous cases of star journalists who have turned out to be slipping fiction into their reporting. There's been several cases like this in different countries. And if you’re listening to this from Germany, you might remember the case of Claas Relotius back in 2018. He was an award-winning reporter at Der Spiegel. He turned out to have invented fictitious interviewees for a bunch of his stories, and he resigned in disgrace. And his reaction was really different from that of Kuusela. He returned several of the awards that he'd won and he said, ‘I'm sick and I need help.’ Kuusela, in contrast, reacted totally unapologetically. And I think there's probably a generational element to this. The newspaper themselves, they've pointed out that Kuusela came from a tradition of what we call gonzo journalism, which is a style of journalism that doesn't shy away from the fact that every time we read reporting, we're getting a version of events that has been filtered through the individual journalist who's witnessed these things. And gonzo journalism, it doesn't just acknowledge that idea, it leans into it, it puts the journalist at the centre of the story as its hero and protagonist. So there's a subjective element to it. And some gonzo journalists were known to have a flexible relationship with the truth, shall we say. But as the paper recognises, you know, this style of reporting has really fallen out of fashion over the last couple of decades. And in any case, Kuusela put fictional elements into stories that weren't recognisably pieces of gonzo journalism, they were just pieces of normal journalism. But anyway, this is a rather spectacular story of someone ruining their own legacy. Kuusela probably would have been remembered as a great reporter, if he just kept his mouth shut. As to what he's going to do now, you will be interested to know that he has been busy writing a play, which opened in February. And since he does seem to be a very talented fiction writer, I would suggest that in his retirement, writing plays might be a better focus for him than journalism.

* * *

D: We are only making this show because of the fantastic generosity of a club of listeners who made the calculation that it's worth supporting us financially in order to keep the show going. So thank you all so much for continuing to keep us going. We love you.

K: We do love you, very much. This week we are super grateful to our latest supporters, Joe, Emily, Cindy, James, and Dorothy. And if you would like to keep the world in a situation in which everyone can continue learning about what's going on in Europe via a fun podcast, rather than the much more dry and boring publications that tend to cover European politics, we would love it if you could send any spare cash our way. You can sign up to support us at patreon.com/europeanspodcast, and receive various fun benefits in exchange.

INTERVIEW WITH JAKUB JANDA - 19’52”

K: Last week, a good old-fashioned Twitter controversy caught my eye. The tweet in question contained a screenshot of an article From the Wall Street Journal, and the article was about this deal that has been reached to find a whole bunch of ammunition for Ukraine, ammunition that is extremely badly needed. Russia is reportedly firing five artillery shells for every Ukrainian shell right now. And there are experts left, right and centre warning that Ukraine's ability to defend itself is under serious threat because of a lack of ammunition, especially because the latest plan to send military help to Ukraine from the United States is being held up in Congress right now. Which is why it was extremely welcome news a couple of weeks back when it emerged that Czechia, otherwise known as the Czech Republic, has managed to secure a deal to buy 800,000 artillery shells from various countries, mostly outside the West. Good job, Czech Republic. And how was the story reported in The Wall Street Journal, Dominic?

D: their headline was, ‘a small ex-Soviet satellite state goes hunting for arms for Ukraine’.

K: Small ex-Soviet satellite state. This rather demeaning characterization of Czechia naturally drew fire from Czech Twitter users, including one Jakub Janda. Can you please read out his viral tweet for us, Dominic?

D: Yes, he said – excuse my language coming up – he says, ‘We are no fucking small ex-Soviet satellite. We are Czechia, a proud 10 million country whose president does phone calls with president of Taiwan. And we just got about a million artillery shells to Ukrainian defenders while Germany and France do a pissing contest over egos.’

K: Colourful. That tweet got 7,300 retweets. And it also prompted the Wall Street Journal to change their headline, it now reads: ‘In Central Europe, Czechs go hunting for arms for Ukraine.’ Which you know, as a headline is much more straight and geographically factual, rather than identifying the Czech Republic with a reference to its political status several decades ago. But the debate prompted by this headline fiasco, it got us thinking about the rather patronising way that countries in this part of the world are sometimes seen in the US and elsewhere. It was also a bold tweet about a country with a pretty bold foreign policy. The Czech government is not just keen to help Ukraine fight off Russia. It's also pretty vocal about standing up to China. Where does this boldness come from? We decided to ring up none other than the author of the viral tweet himself, Jakub Janda. He is the director of the European Values Center for Security Policy, and we gave him a ring in Prague.

D: Hi, Jakub, thanks for joining us today. I wanted to start by asking you what went through your mind when you first saw this headline in the Wall Street Journal, describing Czechia as a ‘small ex-Soviet satellite state’?

JAKUB JANDA: I have to say, I was laughing, because I never thought about us in this way. But I think it's quite obvious that if you are basically an American looking at the map or looking at history to do this comparison, saying basically, ‘How could such a tiny ex-Soviet satellite country actually do such good things for Ukraine, like the arms and munitions?’ To some extent, it actually has a point. But at the same time, it's quite offending. Honestly not to me personally. But to many people in our region, I think it is offensive. Because there are like several jokes like, ‘Okay, then we should call Austria a former Nazi country, or the current German chancellor something like the successor of Adolf Hitler or something like that. Because technically, it's true, but it obviously doesn't have much of a connection to reality today. So it was interesting, and I think it's created a lot of good public reaction. It showcased also where we really are in Central Europe. 

K: Why do you think there is this tendency, though, in the US media, but also beyond it, to see Central Europe through this lens that – well, for one thing, it's patronising, and for another thing, it's it's pretty outdated?

J: Even though it's patronising, it's actually good to kind of see the contrast that you could actually, in relatively short time, turn from basically, if you excuse my language, a shithole country with no future into where we really are, which is like a quite proud EU NATO member state doing quite a lot of things to really have Russia defeated in Ukraine. 

D: Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you a bit about that. How do you think Czechia has managed to pull off this thing, organising a significant amount of ammunition for Ukraine? It's something that a lot of other leaders, Western European leaders, US leaders, would like to do, but have failed to do. Why did Czechia succeed where others failed?

J: First, I will say that this is not a great kind of European success where we actually are now really saving Ukraine. I'm afraid this is only like an indicator of how bad the situation we are in, as Europeans or as Westerners in general, because this emergency initiative run by the Czech government actually saves couple of months of fighting ammunitions for Ukraine. Which is really good, but it's only an emergency measure. Because we failed for the last two years to actually speed up the production of ammunition in Europe and the United States altogether. But to your question, how we got there – I mean, that's maybe connected to the Soviet satellite story, because in the 90s, the whole of central Europe was pretty much filled with Soviet ammunition and weapons, because of Warsaw Pact history. And the thinking in the 90s was, ‘We don't need it anymore, let's sell it, let's make some profit out of it.’ Because we were poor countries in the time, in the 90s, most of central Europe was after the Soviet withdrawal. So much of these, let's say Soviet-era weapons and ammunitions were sold to countries like in the Middle East, North Africa, even in Asia. And the thinking was, we will not need it because the Cold War is over now in Europe. But now, after those 20, 30 years after this, these Czech companies actually have a lot of business relations in third0world countries like North Africa, or even Latin America, some Asian countries as well, where they’ve been selling this Soviet equipment, and now Czech government, but also Czech private companies, can come back to certain countries and say, ‘Look, we've been dealing in the past together. Now, here's a pack of money, we need to buy this Soviet ammunition back, because Ukraine needs it tomorrow.

K: So Czechia has been able to rely on this network of good relations, in this case. When we look at its more testy relations, I find Czechia really interesting in that it's taken a very bold stance against some very huge and powerful countries, not just Russia, but also China. What is the reasoning behind that? 

J: The reasoning is that if you look to our recent history, I mean, 20th century history, we've been pretty much the small player being overtaken by large countries. The Soviet occupation, German occupation, all of this history is relevant in our kind of political and cultural DNA. And now we finally have a time where we could actually stand up and do the right thing for Ukraine, which is very much fighting in defence of Europe, for example, in the case of pushing back against Russia, and supplying Ukraine with quite huge amounts of ammunition and weapons. The thinking in the whole country in Czechia, and much, most of the population, supports this and the government and the president are very good in this. There's a feeling like, you know, in 1968, when the Soviet Russia occupied us, nobody helped us. I mean, it was a kind of desperate situation. But now we can kind of take some revenge, honestly, and we could really help the Ukrainians defending themselves. We didn't have a fighting chance back then. But now we could actually put something back and help brave Ukrainians to do this. To some extent it’s similar with the Chinese infiltration, even though it's more, I would say, political-ideological, because pretty much we've been occupied by communists. And now when the Chinese Communist Party tries to basically become our best friend, Chinese Communist Party has corrupted some of the Czech politicians five to 10 years ago, it created a lot of public pushback, saying like, ‘We’re not gonna be a proxy or a servant of a communist party from abroad. We've seen that with the Soviet Russia, and we are not going to do that again, with communist China now.’

D: We'll come back to China in a bit, but I just want to stick with Ukraine for a minute. Czechia’s current government is a staunch ally of Ukraine, but a couple of your neighbours are going the other way. In Hungary we've got Viktor Orbán, who's considered Putin's closest friend within the EU. We've talked on this podcast a bit about Robert Fico’s pro- Russian leanings in Slovakia. And even in Austria, pro-Russian politicians have a growing influence. Are you worried by this growing trend in Central Europe of governments and big opposition parties leaning towards Russia?

J: It ism and I'm afraid that Czechia and Poland are pretty much on the right side, I mean, on the governmental side, our presidents are there, much of our populations are there as well mentally, geopolitically as well, I mean, against the Soviet occupation. While as you mentioned, Hungary is already completely in the Russian pocket. I'm afraid Slovakia is going in this direction with the current government. And we'll see in two weeks if Slovakia actually selects a president who will be a Russian puppet or a proud NATO former diplomat. That's really the big choice now in Slovakia. 

D: Looks like it'll be tight. 

J: Looks like very close. So that's something that is definitely happening. And Austria has always been on the Russian side, I'm afraid, they've pretended not to be in some of the EU decisions at least. But for example, Austria has been hosting hundreds of Russian intelligence officers who are actually conducting hostile operations against Germany, but against us in Czechia as well, because we have we shared a border and because of the Schengen free movement, we don't have any border checks. So basically, because of the fact that Austria and many of their politicians are in the Russian pocket, it endangers the allies of Austria such as Germany or Czechia. But it might really get worse if the far-right party, which is a complete Russian proxy and ally, or I would say servant, if they become the government soon, we will be pretty much, not fully encircled as Czechia, but many of our neighbours as you see on the map, in Austria, Slovakia and Hungary will be de facto Russian proxies. And that's really bad, not only politically, but also defence-wise because given where Slovakia and Hungary stand, they are NATO members and they are frontline states. If you look at what happens there, basically we have large amounts of NATO troops on their territory prepared to face off Russia, but if their governments decide not to go and pretend they are neutral, that will create a huge problem for later. And I'm afraid we are heading this way.

K: The Czech government have received a lot of praise from the international community for organising this ammunition plan. But we've been having a look at the latest polls and the opposition party of the former populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš seems to have a pretty commanding lead in the polls right now. Why is Fiala’s government apparently not so popular within Czechia right now?

J: The current governing coalition in Czechia is very appreciated by the population in foreign policy. But as we all know, foreign policy doesn't decide elections in most democratic countries, unless there is a real war already. So in our case, the government is facing a lot of domestic economic and social issues. Pretty much it came to power after eight years of the previous populist central-left government, which pretty much spent much of the government's budget. Plus we had an energy crisis, we had the Russian war starting, and we had around half a million Ukrainian refugees coming to Czech Republic, to a country of 10 million. So like 5% of our population plus are Ukrainian refugees. So all of these things combined means there has been a lot of economic and social domestic issues, for which the government is understandably being blamed by part of the electorate. And they are pretty much thinking, ‘Let's call back this populist, the former prime minister, Mr. Babiš, so that he could make the domestic living economically much more sustainable. That's a kind of a normal, I would say, government-against-opposition fight as you could see in any other European country. We still have a year and a half till the next elections, which are scheduled for October 2025. So we'll really see how far the current government will be able to get back in the polls. Usually in the middle of the term, our governments have like lowest approval rate ever, like 20 to 30%. That's very usual in our constitutional memory. So we'll see if they manage to get up in the next year and a half.

D: I'd like to circle back to Czechia and China now, and in particular to talk about Czechia’s pretty vocal support for Taiwan in the face of increasing threats from Beijing, which denies Taiwan's right to exist as an independent democratic country. This position of really strong support for Taiwan, it's actually quite a recent change for Czechia. The previous president was very pro-Beijing. What changed?

J: Several things at one time, In 2018, 2019, the Chinese interference in politics was so high that it pretty much pissed off much of the civil society, media and the opposition parties. I mean, it started first a kind of this political reflex or reaction to elite capture by China into politics, like, let's get friendly with friendly Asian democracies, such as Taiwan, we don't want to be puppets of China. That's what much of the Czech opposition party started to do in 2018, 19, 20, and then in 2021 the opposition won the elections and became the government. So pretty much most of the ministers who are in government now in Czechia, have really been opposition leaders who built their relations to Taiwan in the previous political term or parliamentary term. Same with the current president, who is the only one from Europe who actually openly supports Taiwan, you know, he had phone calls with Taiwanese president, he's supporting Taiwan on the international stage. No other European presidents dare to do it, because they're afraid of Chinese economic pushback. 

K: I am quite interested in the difference between Czechia and also some other governments towards the east of Europe, like Lithuania, that have decided to stick up for Taiwan. Those governments have calculated really differently from a lot of Western European governments that, frankly, seem too scared to piss China off by being overly friendly with Taiwan. Why do you think some governments are making this calculation differently from others? 

J: Pretty much for us in Czechia, you know, human rights has been the core of our foreign policy for the last 30 plus years. And the thinking is, we know China is a largest abuser of human rights. You know, Chinese Communist Party is the largest global totalitarian organisation in the current world. So they shouldn't really be our best friends, right? The second reason is actually geopolitical, meaning that the similar way China is threatening Taiwan is pretty similar to how Russia is actually endangering most of Europe and currently murdering in Ukraine on a massive scale. So the right thing to do is to stand up for the weaker guy, if I put it that way, like a small democracy against the big dictatorship. Kind of a similar story, I'm afraid. But then comes also the other question, which is maybe more pragmatic, and that's: we know how much we central Europeans are dependent on US military presence against Russia. In Central Europe we really need the US troops and US Air Force. And we know how much China is threatening the United States and other allies of the US in the Indo-Pacific. So we should be good allies, not only begging the US for help, but also doing something on our own, and obviously a 10 million country with no sea cannot really be helpful in the Indo-Pacific military wise. We have no navy, as Czechia. But we actually have a lot of political bravery, I would say, or will. So we can at least do, say the right things with Taiwan. So that's why it's not only these political relations between Czechia in Taiwan, which are pretty much the deepest one in Europe or from Europe, but also we have security relations, we have heads of intelligence agencies, we have police chiefs visiting Taiwan, doing real practical cooperation. And I think it makes sense not only substantially because Czechia then gets a better understanding of the Chinese threat, because Taiwan already has this knowledge and is willing to share it with friends, and the other way around. And actually, if we want American soldiers could be potentially dying in defence of central Europe – because that's really what NATO is all about – we need to be a good ally the other way around, which means supporting the good cause in the Indo-Pacific with the means we have. Obviously, as a small country, we can’t do that much. But politically, security wise, I think we are pretty much punching above our weight though.

* * *

K: Quite fun to have a conversation that takes us around the globe from Czechia to China. 

D: Yeah, I really didn't know about Czechia’s relationship with Taiwan. 

K: And it's something that I want to talk about more, actually, Europe's relationship more broadly with China, in the coming months. I feel like it's one of those issues that isn't getting quite enough oxygen with everything else that's happening in this troubled world of ours. So I'm really glad that we got to talk to Jakub this week. His Twitter feed is an enjoyable mix of geopolitics and cute dog pictures. Strongly recommend. He's there @_JakubJanda.

THE INSPIRATION STATION - 36’51”

D: It's time for our segment called the Inspiration Station, in which we normally share some cultural goodies from Europe that either we've enjoyed ourselves, or our listeners have recommended. But this week, we're going to do things slightly differently. We've invited our producer Wojciech to share some reflections with us about the biggest cultural democratic event in Europe of the year. No, not Eurovision, but the European Tree of the Year award. We're obsessed. Wojciech is joining us from Warsaw today because a Polish tree won this award for the third year running. Wojciech, thanks for joining us today. And as a Pole, may I start by congratulating you on your award winning trees – all of them. Three years in a row? It's getting a bit awkward.

WOJCIECH OLEKSIAK: Yeah, suspicious, right? 

K: Yeah. 

W: So yeah, I have to admit, there is pretty convincing circumstantial evidence that this is not a coincidence. 

K: So this competition has been known in the past for voter fraud, which is one of the reasons we're obsessed withit. Obviously, voter fraud is never funny, but it is kind of funny when it's in the European Tree of the Year award. Was this voter fraud, though?

W: I mean, at least this year, there is a suspicious thing that went down. And this is there are two massive Instagram accounts in Poland. I mean, ones with a massive, colossal following, about 2 million people combined. This is basically like a relentless stream of memes. So, there are memes about politics, about taking a day off, about… there's like a lot of cheeky humour. Oh, and obviously a lot of adorable animals and animal trivia. When there is a popular vote on the internet, they will ask their followers to go and vote. Like yesterday, I went, you know, to check what's out there. And they were voting for like the cutest penguin or something.

K: This seems llike a massive waste of Poland's time. 

W: Yeah, but I guess we’re just very good at wasting time. So basically, what happens is like, you know, these are very small websites, and they have like poor hosting plans. So when you have like a website that usually is visited by, let's say, 5000 people a week, and suddenly, you know, 30,000 people in one minute try to log in and vote because somebody posted the story, it just crashes. And they love it. They always boast themselves, ‘Oh, we crashed another site.’ So the same thing happened to the Tree of the Year. So they, you know, they encouraged their followers to vote for the Tree of the Year, the site got shut down temporarily. And you know, hey, presto, a month later, it turns out that Polish tree wins the Tree of the Year for the third consecutive time. It's very hard to check because these are stories so they disappeared, but I believe they did that at least last year, too. And I don't really like it, I think.

K: It's just not fun if the same country wins every time. 

D: No.

W: Yeah, especially I think ‘cos this contest is lovely. Like, it's nerdy, it’s pleasantly absurd. And then when somebody comes in with just you know, a massive bunch of their followers and spoils it, to a certain extent… You know this year’s tree is really nice, but there were other nice trees too. 

D: Has the Tree of the Year organisation responded to this allegation, or is it just an allegation you've come up with now?

W: No, it's totally my own investigation. Very unprofessional.

K: Breaking news.

D: This is original investigative reporting.

W: But yeah, I just, I'm just sure it happened because I saw this happening live. I think they might not know because as far as I managed to check online, they have not addressed this in any sort of way. 

K: Well listen, in the spirit of journalistic excellence, we will reach out to them this week and get back to you, listeners, and see if we get a response from the Tree of the Year people.

D: Yeah.

K: I do think they should just introduce like Eurovision-style rules for this competition so that you can't vote for your own country.

W: That would be lovely. 

D: I'm just reading about the Tree of the Year competition online and I just read a really nice quote from one of the Czech environmental organisations behind the competition. And the quote is, ‘I haven't met a person who's told me they don't like trees.’ 

K: That's very true. It's funny, trees are so uncontroversial, and yet this competition just year after year is surrounded by drama. Thank you very much Wojciech for joining us today.

W: My pleasure.

K: I'd say that we're hoping for less controversial competition next year, but that is absolutely not true. We live for this drama.

D: We really do.

HAPPY ENDING - 41’14”

D: For my happy ending this week, I have happy news for weed lovers in Germany, or just general supporters of the decriminalisation of weed. Because last Friday, Germany's upper house cleared the way for the partial legalisation of cannabis from April 1. Yes, that is this coming Easter Monday.

K: I've been wondering what was happening with this, because we talked about this plan on the show ages ago.

D: We did. It's finally happening. And yeah, from this Easter Monday, adults will be allowed to carry up to 25 grams of cannabis and have up to 50 grams at home. You can grow up to three plants yourself at home. We're actually allowed up to five here in the Netherlands, so nerr. From July 1, cannabis clubs of up to 500 people will also be allowed for people who don't want to do all the growing themselves, for those lazier potheads.

K: What's a cannabis club? Is that just a shop?

D: I think it's not a shop. I think it's like a cooperative.

K: That’s nice. Very wholesome.

D: Where you kind of grow your cannabis together. So enjoy, Germany, and please consume your weed responsibly and not in front of children, because that's still illegal. Thank you.

K: Wishing you all a very relaxing Easter Monday.

D: Maybe it's going to start a new Easter Monday weed smoking tradition.

K: That would be so weird.

* * *

D: That's all we've got time for today. We'll be back next week in your feeds on Thursday. This week's episode was produced by Katy Lee and Wojciech Oleksiak. Thank you both.

K: Dominic did half the talking as well, let's not forget that. Thanks, Dominic. 

D: Oh, thanks. Not used to that. 

K: For more of the same in social media format, you can follow us all over the place. Instagram, Twitter, Threads and Mastodon. Just search for ‘Europeans podcast’. 

D: Have a good week, everyone.

K: Uvidíme se příště.