Politically Charged Post

Our producer Wojciech has a theory that Central and Eastern Europe, in their broadest sense, share a common trait - they do not tolerate emptiness. Any deficit or shortage is promptly filled by individuals who have come to realize that they cannot always depend on their states to provide essential services. This is precisely the theme of our interview this week, with Ilir Gashi, who shares his story of getting involved in an unofficial courier system between Kosovo and Serbia when the state postal office ceased its deliveries. Against the backdrop of recent tensions between these countries flaring up once again, it provides a poignant glimpse into the daily life on the border of these nations.

We're also talking about Greece’s new left-ish leader Stefanos Kasselakis (and his good-looking dog) and Spain's dealings with its gruesome past under the infamous General Franco. 

This is our first episode of the autumn season and we’ll stay with you until the end of the year! There’s lots to come with some very exciting special episodes coming up! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at ⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠ (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by ⁠leaving us a review⁠ or giving us five stars on Spotify. 

You can read Ilir’s piece here in In The Guardian, we heartily recommend you do!

Producers: Katy Lee and Wojciech Oleksiak

Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

Twitter | Instagram | hello@europeanspodcast.com

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction - 00’22”

Dominic: Hi, Katz. We're back! And listeners we have some very happy news to open the show with. Last week our new intern was born! Katy had her baby. And we are very proud of her and our favorite dad of the show. And while they are getting acquainted, you're going to be hearing a bit more from producers, Katz and Wojciech, who will be taking it in turns to join me as co-hosts. So that jolly voice you hear is Katz Laszlo. So thanks for stepping in, Katz.

Katz: Yeah, Wojciech and I promised to do our very best to keep the show safe until Katy gets back. And you'll also actually be hearing from Katy herself later on in the show, but we'll get to that in a bit. Anyway, it has been ages. How have you been? How's your summer been?

Dominic: It's been great. I didn't have much of a holiday. It was a busy summer of performing, since I made our last podcast. I've actually been busy performing as a mushroom, as a robot, as a praying mantis and also as a horny, downtrodden, misogynist, not all in the same show. How's your summer being Katz?

Katz: Oh boy! No comment. I have actually also been working quite a lot over the summer together with Katy, we've been reporting on a special series, which will be showing up in the coming months. And it is about Oatly.

D: Ooooh, about Oatly, a real plant based milk investigation. I cannot wait to hear what you've been looking into Katz! But we do need to have a bit more holiday.

K: Let's, let's work on that for next year. Okay, yeah. Now onward the show. What have we got in store today, Dominic.

D: This week, we're going to be having a chat with a really great journalist called Ilir Gashi, who wrote a fascinating piece that was nominated for the European Press Prize about this sort of alternative postal system that's opened up in the Balkans between Serbia and Kosovo, where there's not actually any official way to send packages at the moment. It's really interesting and gives you a really clear insight of what life is like living in one of these two countries. So that's coming up later in the show. But first, as always, it's time to find out who's had a good week in Europe and who's had a bad week.

Good Week Bad Week -  02’52’’

K: Who has had a good week, Dominic?

D: It's been a good week for Stefannos Kasselakis. He’s a Greek American businessman who came out of nowhere to win the leadership election of the left wing Greek party Syriza, Greece’s biggest opposition party. And now when I say he came out of nowhere, I'm not actually speaking in hyperbole. Well, he obviously didn't like appear out of thin air. But he did only announce his candidacy at the end of August and had virtually no experience in Greek politics.

K: Interesting. 

D: It really is interesting. The only thing he’s done was unsuccessfully stand for an expat seat as Greek MP earlier this summer. But his rise has been absolutely meteoric. In fact, he only moved back to Greece in Spring this year. That's how inexperienced he is in Greek politics.

K: Where was he? 

D: He spent more than two decades in the USA where he moved as a teenager, on a maths scholarship. He was like a super whiz kid. So he's very clever!

K: A maths whiz kid! Who is this joker?

D: Well, he describes himself as a self made shipping entrepreneur. So he's a businessman.

K: Sexy!

D: Oh, wait till you get to how photogenic he is. He's a businessman. And he also just happens to be a former employee of that most beloved of all investment banks - Goldman Sachs.

K: Noooooo!

D: Yeah, it's really not the biography you'd necessarily expect from someone leading this left wing party that grew alongside a wave of anti-banker sentiment. But Kasselakis says that it's precisely because he worked for Goldman Sachs as a young adult that he saw how messed up the system is. He said on Facebook: “If I hadn't known capitalism from inside if I hadn't seen the injustice of money, I may not have been a leftist”

K: Interesting!

D: …but it seems the Syriza party members are gonna give him a chance. And that might have been helped by the fact that as I mentioned, he's an incredibly photogenic. 35 year old gay man with a beautiful dog, and a sharp instinct for social media videos that go viral…

K: featuring the dog?

D: Oh, yeah, almost always featuring the dog!

K: I can't wait to watch. 

D: He's very open about his sexuality as well. He's married to a man from the US called Tyler, an emergency room nurse who he describes us having given him the breadth of freedom. And it is actually quite something that he's married to a man because same sex marriage is still not legal in Greece, which is something Kasselakis wants to change.

K: Okay, and what else does this guy stand for?

D: Well, he's talking about tax relief for both public and private sector employees. He wants to massively increase spending on education. He wants to separate church and state, he wants to reform the judiciary, and he wants to grant citizenship for migrant children brought up and born in Greece. But in his four weeks of campaigning, he obviously hasn't come up with a fully rounded political program. And many on the left of the party are pretty concerned about the direction he wants to take Syriza in because it does seem like he wants to move the party to the center. Some think that this is necessary for Syriza to come back to power. Others, of course, disagree pretty strongly.

K: And how long ago since Syriza, was last in power?

D: Well, it wasn't that long ago. Actually, it was back in 2019, that Alexis Tsipras, the long running leader of Syriza lost power to the current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of the Conservative Party, New Democracy. And, Syriza have now lost four consecutive elections, two of which took place this past summer, and the most recent of which was an absolute disaster for Syriza, they dropped to 47 of the 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament down from a peak of 149 seats in January 2015. That said, Syriza are still the biggest opposition party. So Kasselakis will be an important and powerful political figure in opposing the government.

K: But you told me he didn't actually win as an MP. So he's not in Parliament, right?

D; Yeah, that's another pretty quirky thing about his election as leader. He's not an MP, even though he did stand on the expatriate MP list. But he didn't get elected. So he will probably end up appointing someone who actually did get elected as an MP for Syriza to be his deputy and lead the Parliamentary Group, which is definitely a more complicated, and generally it's a more unpredictable situation now than if his main opponent, the former labour minister, Efi Achtsioglou, had won the race as had been expected. Just a few weeks ago, she would have been the first ever female leader of a main opposition party in Greece. And she had more of an explicitly left wing political program. But it was not to be cast like his veto with about 57% of the vote. 

K: Wow. And how did he get so big so quickly? Is it just because he has this nice dog?

D: I think it could be to do with his dog and his social media videos. But I read a really good piece from longtime friend of the pod, Nick Malkoutzis who published a piece on macro policy in the aftermath of the election full of fascinating analysis. His main argument was the Kasselakis managed to give very little away about himself so people could project whatever they wanted onto him. And Nick argues the voting for him could almost feel like an act of catharsis after the party suffered some very difficult years in power, and much disappointment in opposition. After that, it gave Kasselakis as the chance to present himself as the electable candidate rather than the candidate that stands for a specific set of values. And, of course, this focus on supposed electability in leadership candidates is something we've been seeing with left wing and center left parties all across Europe and in the States in recent years. And actually, I said he had very little political experience, but he did volunteer for a US senator called Joe Biden back in the 2008. Democratic primary.

K: Good old Joe!

D: Yeah, so someone else who benefitted at least at the last Democratic primary from being seen as the electable candidate, I'm not sure that would still be the case. Now, Kasselakis has also said he wants Syriza to become more of a broad tent, left wing party like the US Democratic Party…

K: …why would anyone want to do that?

D: Yeah, that's a very fair point. And it's also one of the things that is really scaring some people on the left of Syriza. And I shouldn't understate the schism that his election has caused in Syriza. One series MEP told The Guardian that this is the end of left wing Syriza as we know it, so he's going to have quite a difficult time of holding his party together, which has always been a mix of different left wing factions. The party was after all formed in 2004, from various organizations of the Greek political left who had very different ideological backgrounds from each other. But we'll have to see how he settles into the job. He most probably has some years until the next general election in Greece. But for now, it's been a good week for Stefanos, KAsselakis!  Who's had a bad week, Katz?

K: I am giving a bad week to Franco.

D: Oh, bold. It's been dead for quite a long time.

K: Yes, I know. But I'm giving it to him posthumously because there are a couple of interesting things going on. And I also feel like most Europeans outside of Spain don't really know that much about Franco.

D: Oh, I totally agree. I don't think he ever once came up in a history class school in the UK.

K: Yeah. Which is pretty wild. Like it was one of the longest dictatorships in Europe, it went from 1939 until 1975.

D: It's completely wild.

K: It's like a whole lifetime. And so recent, actually, yeah, I always find it really nuts when I'm back in Barcelona to think that like anyone over the age of 45, lived under a dictatorship. Yeah. Now, for context, the way that this history is processed, also, within Spain, the way people dealt with the Civil War, and then the dictatorship that followed, it was really different to you know, how World War Two was processed. In Germany, for example, like the strategy was very much, “let's not talk about this”. Okay, and not talking about it is on some level understandable, because, you know, it was a really, really long conflict. And it was a conflict within the countries, obviously, it's not just going to go away. But yeah, it also means that a lot of things have not been really processed. And there hasn't been as much acknowledgement always for the victims of the regime as some people would like. And a lot of people connected to Franco just kind of went on having pretty powerful positions.

And another thing is that there was never really something like the Nuremberg trials. So like I said, Franco lead until his death, and he only died in 1975. 

D: Wow. And so why is he having a bad week?

K: So this week, for the first time in history, the state prosecutor has ordered a criminal investigation into a torture case that happened in 1970, under Franquismo.

D: Wow, the first time in history and what's the case? 

K: Yeah, so it's around this guy, Carles Vallejo who is now 72. He's still alive. And he was allegedly tortured for 21 days by the social political brigade, which was like, the Franco's secret police. Carles is still alive. And he was detained by the social political brigade, which was like the Francoist secret police. And they were sort of in charge of spying on and persecuting the opposition movements.

D: So he was part of the opposition?

K: Yeah. So the police come to his house, and he starts running away. And he was holding these pamphlets. And in the pamphlets was poetry written by this guy, Alberti. What kind of poems? So Alberti was a Spanish poet, and he became a Marxist. And during the civil war in the 30s, he was sort of this poetic voice of the far left. So he read these poems on the radio during the war, and was sort of quite a political figure in that sense.

D: Wow. Poetry as revolution.

K: Yeah. And Alberti actually lived in exile after the Civil War, and didn't come back until Franco died. And so, basically, you really don't want to be caught with these poems when you are being questioned by the Franco's police. So from then Carles was interrogated and tortured for 21 days, and then he was sent to prison.

D: Oh, it sounds very grim. So who is this case against this case that the prosecutor just launched?

K: Yeah, it's, it's against the former chief of that particular police station at the time, Vicente Juan Creix, and then also the deputy of that police station. And both of them are now dead. And then there are also four inspectors and one of those is also dead.

D: Okay, and what does the prosecutor hope to achieve by bringing this case that is happening so long after the fact? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of similar to a lot of these like, very long after the fact cases or you know, like posthumous pardoning it's basically a move to establish like, and really figure out judicially like, what we as a society accept. And, if Carles wins, then it's basically a statement of like, we as a country as Spain, no longer think that that was an acceptable thing to do. And it's also just to recognize the victims and what they went through. And how Carles he is saying that he's not the only one who experienced torture like this, that it was a structural thing. And he told us after the area's Spanish newspaper, that it's not a personal issue. Like he's not doing this for personal reasons. He said, I'm doing this in memory of all the people who didn't get the chance. And now they aren't here with us anymore.

D: Wow, powerful statement. And how come this is coming up now?

K: So just last year, in 2022, a new law came into force in Spain. It's called the law of democratic memory. And one of the purposes is to oblige the state to investigate violations of human rights during the Civil War and under the Franco regime, which, like I said, for a country that hasn't talked about this that much is really big news.

D: Well, I'm convinced - bad week for Franco.

K: Yeah, bad week for Franco. And it will be really interesting to see how this law works. And you know what, what the fallout of this is, so we'll have to wait and see if and when there's a hearing.

* * *

D: We've been gone for rather a long time due to Katy's baby making and my performing as a mushroom. And therefore we have quite a list of names to thank this week. I am going to do that thing I tried once before and I'm going to try to read them all out in one breath.

[LIST OF NAMES] for increasing their pledges. Thank you all. And I got breath to spare. 

K: Oh, that's so many. Thank you!

D: Oh, thank you all. I really messed up some of the names at the beginning. But maybe that's fine. I sometimes get asked by people why we don't have more adverts on this show, as surely that would help keep the podcast running. And in a way they are right, please potential advertisers do get in touch and we can cut you a great deal. But in truth, it's because almost all companies organize their advertising budgets per country. And our audience just doesn't fit that we've got listeners all over Europe and beyond Europe. And that's something we love about this show and the audience we've built, but it does mean that we really do depend on donations from listeners in order to keep this show on the road. So if you are able to donate to us from as little as two euros a month, then please do please head to patreon.com forward slash Europeans podcast.

INTERVIEW WITH ILIR GASHI - 18’00”

D: Now we are all missing Katy, aren't we? And we're being very restrained in not whatsapping her every five minutes and deliberately keeping her out of the loop with all our daily goings on at the Europeans.

K: Oh, never exerted so much self control!

D: That's really hard. But we are, of course, very happy to give her the time to get to know the new little baby European she welcomed into the world last week. If you're also missing Katy, then we've got good news for you. You're about to hear a bit of her voice because Katy and I recorded this week's interview a few weeks ago when she was still full of baby inside her belly. That's a weird way of saying it, but I'm sticking with it. 

And the conversation we had was a really interesting one. We spoke to Ilir Gashi, a super cool journalist and activist based in Belgrade, Serbia. And the reason why we called him up is because we read a beautiful piece he wrote, which was nominated for the European press prize. It's a piece called the alternative Balkan postal system. And in it, he describes how he got involved in a network of people who have created a kind of unofficial courier system between Kosovo and Serbia. Because due to the long running and ongoing tension between these two countries, there is still no official way to send post or packages between Kosovo and Serbia. Despite the fact that there are families with cousins, siblings, parents who live on different sides of the border and want to sometimes get things to each other. His peace was so beautifully written and reading it, and speaking to him, was such a nice way of understanding a bit about the reality of life in the Balkans. There's been a lot of reporting about the tensions between Serbia and Kosovo flaring up over the last few months. And, in fact, just last weekend, there was a day-long gun battle with police in northern Kosovo, after around 30 heavily armed Serbs barricaded themselves in an Orthodox monastery. It's been described as one of the worst outbreaks of violence since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. And amidst this tension and violence, the reality of life in these countries can often feel quite abstract in media coverage about attempts to normalize relations. So it's more important than ever to look behind the headlines and hear a bit about what life is actually like for people living in these countries. And we're very happy that Ilir spoke to us a few weeks ago about the impressions you collected whilst helping people get packages across the border.

D: When did you first start carrying things across the Balkans as an unofficial courier? When was the first time you did that? And what are some of the most weird and wonderful things that you've transported?

ILIR: I don't really remember when was the first time because it's so common thing to do in the Balkans. But where I started doing it regularly? This was around three years ago, when I started making more frequent trips between Belgrade and Pristina, Belgrade in Serbia and Pristina in Kosovo. And then I realized that there is really no other way to send stuff between Serbia and Kosovo, except for the parts in Kosovo with the Serbian majority. And that part did function relatively well, until recently, when there was an increase in tensions in Kosovo several months ago. And I read it in the news that even in these Serbian inhabited communities in the north, now they cannot get things delivered by Serbian post office. So now even for them, it's impossible or near impossible. So those buses, and they're, I think three lines, is the only option for people to send stuff. And it can be anything. Most of it is, it's quite prosaic, like they send money, they send documents, medication. Tomorrow, I'll be traveling to Kosovo, and I'll bring some pills to a friend in Pristina. People send all sorts of stuff. But when it really became interesting, is when I was asked to bring this doll, it was a little girl, she was in Belgrade, with her parents. And when they went back to Kosovo, they realized that she forgot to bring her dog. And then a friend calls me on the phone. And she's like, are there’s this family and there is a doll, so can you just take it with you? And of course, you say yes to that. But then you also realize it's such a cool mission, you're taking the actual doll, and it has so much significance for her. And you're the one you know, you're the chosen one, and you're going to make someone happy. So you become really serious.

K: So the way you describe it in your article, there are various different elements of the system, there are people like you individuals who might be given something by a friend or an acquaintance to deliver to another friend, there are people who carry passengers and their private cars, who also carry stuff from one place to another within the Balkans, where you can ask the bus driver to do this. Why aren't people using official postal services for this kind of thing?

I: I think in many other cases, except this one with Serbia and Kosovo, which is like so politically charged with places like Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, I mean, postal service, it functions. It's just that in part, it's because I think people don't trust institutions as much. You know, you can imagine not receiving your package in five months time. It's just something we're used to thinking will happen. Even though maybe now it's better. But then also, I think this informal system is, it's ridiculously efficient. You know, I remember one time my then girlfriend, I took her charger, her laptop charger, and she took mine and we were in two different places. And you need your charger now, right? You have like three hours of battery. By using this bus system, we managed to exchange the charges within 12 hours or less. No postal service can do this. And it's like 10 euros or something, just a little money you give to the driver. So it's super efficient. And yeah, I think it's really part of the culture. And what I realized, you know, we like to think I guess everyone is like this. Oh, it's something that's so typical for the Balkans, but then this story was also translated to Italian and published inInternazionale. And the editor wanted to make it a bit more exciting in terms of the wording of the title. And they put something like the mysterious informal postal system in the Balkans. And then there were like 100 comments to the social media posts coming from people from Southern Italy. They were actually angry, you know, like, What do you mean, mysterious? There is nothing mysterious about this. We've been doing this for centuries. And then I realized it's the same in many places in Eastern Europe, mostly. So I think it's really a universal phenomenon.

D: But other people that are working as unofficial couriers, are they taking on a level of personal risk by transporting goods across borders? Like can you be sure that everything being transported is legal?

I: Of course, not. Like I once transported cannabis oil for a friend for medical treatment, it had to pass three borders, I was traveling from Kosovo, to Macedonia to Albania, I cannot remember the details. And I didn't even know if it was legal to carry it across the border. And I spent a couple of hours trying to find out, but I couldn't. So I just took the risk, because for her, it was so important to get it. Some people, of course, do it for profit. I think most people just yeah, they wouldn't take anything illegal. Except arms. Of course, it's like a traditional reasonable hobby.

K: I mean, as you say, this does happen in other places, Southern Italy being one example. But you're right in this piece that it was almost as if someone wanted to make sure that we were all kept away from each other inside our walled and increasingly homogenous ethnic communities, like in the Balkans specifically, do you think there is a kind of deliberate element to it to the fact that governments have failed to build this kind of proper functioning infrastructure back up again, even though we're now decades after all time?

I: there is, I think, a very deliberate attempt at separating people. And it's not like a conspiracy theory. It's just that, sadly, nationalism is the ruling ideology of the region. And it only makes sense as an ideology. To an extent have you been successful in preventing people from meeting those other people, because once they do, they will quickly realize that they are very similar. And then the entire logic of nationalism, which is based on the idea of differences, it's not as sustainable anymore, so you need to make people become more separate. I mean, there, it's so much more complex than the way I'm explaining it. But I remember this one time I was in Ljubljana, in Slovenia, trying to get to Sarajevo in Bosnia. And there was no direct busline. And in Yugoslavia, and times, it would be unimaginable to have two capitals of the two republics without having 10 bus lines every day. And it's not like they don't need it. Because there's a bunch of people from Bosnia and Herzegovina working in Slovenia, there are no trains, the train networks are literally destroyed after the wars. And I guess they require a lot of investment. And again, the reasons for trains not functioning very well are complicated. But I think he has that the local ruling elites can only be as successful in their attempts to continue the rule, as much as they're able to make people believe that they should not travel to other places and to make it difficult for them. 

D: How frustrated do the people in your life get about things like this? I mean, do people still get angry about how hard it is to send a document across borders? Or get a bus between two capital cities in bordering countries? Or is there just kind of an acceptance that this is how it is, and this is how it is always going to be? 

I: It's funny that you asked me that because when I travel on this bus between Belgrade and Pristina, I always look at people and think about this, I think there is sort of self acceptance. And for the most part, these people, they, they just want things to be over and start functioning, but they know that they believe that this will not change, you know, and then they just do whatever needs to be done to make it at least a bit easier for them. But in terms of their view of the future, I don't think they expect that things will improve. I mean, any particular border is ridiculous in its own right. But these in the Balkans, it's like I need to have deliberate mental efforts every time to understand the concept of borders, you know, between these countries because they literally, it's the same people. 

K: There's this really nice moment at the end of your article where you talk about how some of these deliveries are not exactly kind of necessary. This is a woman called Masada, who keeps getting deliveries of food from a man who she saved during the war when he was a kid, by hiding him in her house. And this guy these days, you know, he could just send her money, right? He could wire her money, but he sends her these physical food parcels all the time. What did talking to all of these people make you realize about why people send some of this stuff?

I:  So on the surface, most of the time, there is a very practical reason why people are sending stuff, right, sending money, sending documents, sending laptop chargers, education, there is always a very clear, practical reason for that. But then, actually, when I was told the story that you just sold, I realized it's of course, quite a banal realization. But I only had intel that underneath these practicalities, there is an issue of care. So I send you something because I care about you. Of course, he could send the money. But the reason why he's sending food is because it makes me sad. No, every time that she remembered her, she's very old. And her husband died and her son died. And I guess in many ways, you know, we only exist, to the extent we feel loved by other people and notice the other people and for her, this is an evidence that there is someone this guy Miko, somewhere out there that thinks about her and cares about her. So underneath everything, there is, I think, always the issue of care and communication. And it only reflects in things as simple as documents, letters printed out. But then beneath that, it's like, I will bring you this, I got you covered. 

D: In your email to us, after we invited you on the show, you mentioned that being invited on to this show, the Europeans was the first time you'd been even implicitly called a European in your life. And I found that interesting, and a bit surprising. And I wondered whether that was something you'd been aware of that you weren't ever called a European and whether you felt European, but when mentioned or whether it's just something you've not thought about?

I: I was really interested in it as a statement. I don't know. I mean, I feel like I share the values that are for some reason considered to be European values, even though I believe also, they are very much present in other cultures as well. We don't think about ourselves as, as Europe, I think most of the time, it's like in a train you have, you have compartments, and you have first grade and you have the second rate, and you have the third grade and have the fourth grade. And as you travel through the Balkans, everyone wants to get from the fifth to the fourth, and then to the third, and then to the second one, and then to the first. But there seems to be a ceiling in this, you know that you will not be as well accepted in the first or even the second class. And with our experience of living under the visa regime. It's something everyone knows the terrible experience of applying for a visa, and then being denied the right to enter a European Union country like 2006, I was applying for a visa in Hungary to go to the Nick Cave’s concert. And then the officer at the embassy, she was just like, looked through my papers and she said no. And I was like, I was so shocked. And I told her like, I just want to go to the Cave’s concert. And it should be a reason good enough. But apparently it's not. And then you realize that once these levels are removed, that it's simply a moment of political decision. It's not like the entire country became different. And all of the people living in this country became less risky in terms of visiting, you know, the rich countries of the North or the West. It's just a political decision. I also remembered one other time when I felt like being called European. It's when we are expected in the media, independent media world when we're expected to fight malicious Russian influence in the Balkans, then all of a sudden, we are being recognized as parts of Europe. Whereas otherwise it's like, go back to the line where it's a little bit longer. And of course, it's not a one sided affair. You know, I always hate when people blame Europe for how things are in the Balkans, of course, the prevailing chunk of responsibilities is on the local political elites and they clearly do not want to become part of Europe because it at least means

to a higher extent of the rule of law and transparency of state institutions, and the elites are so dependent on corruption, and they're so connected with organized crime. That literally by joining Europe, the entire concept of ruling these countries in the Balkans is false apart. But there is also a parts of responsibility that lies on this other side of the border. Europe needs to exercise the values in a way that makes it more believable because there is it's such a strong beacon of these values. And once that's compromised, it means it's compromised around the world.

D:

I highly recommend you go and read Ilirs whole piece about the alternative Balkan postal system. We'll share a link of the English translation in our show notes. It was nice to hear Katy's voice, right?

K:  It was!

ISOLATION INSPIRATION - 36’22’’

D: Katz, what have you been enjoying over the summer? What have you been listening to or reading or watching? 

K: My isolation inspiration is also a podcast this week. It is called Witch and it is hosted by a journalist called India Rakusen and what I love about it, it's like this really nice combination where it's playful, and there's like these sort of fun rituals that they're describing these pagan rituals. But I'm also learning like about a really significant part of spiritual history in Europe. And one that is not Christian.

D: Oh, sounds cool.

K: Yeah. And it's also interesting, because it's like a pretty major part of women's history that basically they make the case that we don't really take it that seriously. Like, when you think about witches, what are your first connotations?

D: Yeah, obviously, cauldrons and broomsticks and witches hats, but also people being burnt at the stake.

K: Yeah, like we sort of have this connotation of like people wearing pointy hats and storing things. And you know, but it's also a pretty serious part of our history. And I'm on the third episode now. And one of the guests talks about how we have almost no plaques commemorating people who were killed in those trials. And when we do, they're described as witches, whereas they were like, people who were, you know, charged of crimes that they couldn't possibly have committed. So yeah, it's really super-duper interesting, and a really good combination of super informative and also really fun.

D: Sounds pretty good. I'm gonna give it a listen.

K: Yeah, it is on the BBC sounds app, and also everywhere else. Dominic, what were you listening to watching reading?

D: I've got a very silly isolation inspiration for everyone. Today. It's a smash hit summer podcast made in Amsterdam that I'm sure many of you will have already listened to because it's been so popular. But if you haven't, I had to mention it. Because it's so stupid and so funny. It's called “Who Shat on the Floor at my Wedding”. And it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a true crime show where a very under qualified private detective tries to work out who did a shit on the floor at the wedding of her friends, Helen and Karen. So if you need a bit of stupid audio in your life, then don't look any further than this show who shot on the floor at my wedding?

HAPPY ENDING 38’59’’

D: I've got a happy ending from our hometown Katz from Amsterdam.

K: Oh, tell me!

D: The city this week announced a 95% drop in the number of new HIV infections between 2010 and 2020!

K: Amazing

D: It is such incredible news, isn't it? In 2010 200 People were sadly infected with HIV and in 2022, only nine people were infected over the whole year in Amsterdam.

K: That is incredible!

D: This significant decrease is down to the use of HIV prevention, pill prep, but also faster detection of acute infections and the immediate start of treatment after diagnosis. Prep is just a game changer for people at risk of contracting HIV and it has been amazing to see this drug become more readily available in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands. Though I know from my circle of friends that it's not always as easy as just getting prep when you want it. You  do have to sometimes sit on a waiting list, but the government are trying to make access more readily available. And I should also mention that looking at global context, the fight against HIV is nowhere near over. A lot of people with HIV across the world still do not have access to medicines that could treat their infection, which is an absolute tragedy. But this is meant to be a happy ending. So let's sit with the good news and Amsterdam for a bit and just remind our leaders, please increase access to HIV prevention and treatment medications across the world, please, thank you.

OUTRO - 40’40’’

D: Well, that was that! That's our first episode back! Thanks for joining me, Katz.

K: Yeah, it was a pleasure.

D: You should all head to our Instagram to see a picture of Katy's beautiful new baby almost doing Angela Merkel's famous rhombus pose with his hands. Recommend. Our Instagram is @Europeanspodcast, and we're kinda almost still on X, formally Twitter at Europeans pod, but I'm honestly questioning whether we should continue there more and more every day.

K: That said, please do follow.

D: Please follow us. Join us for the dying days of Twitter. And of course, support us on Patreon, please, and then you'll get access to the Patreon Facebook group where we chat about things going on in Europe and where we need to decide what to rename isolation inspiration, I completely forgot about it. But we've had some great suggestions. So head in there. We're going to give it one more week and next week, I promise we're going to rename isolation inspiration because it doesn't feel totally appropriate as a name anymore.

K: Very exciting.

D: This week's episode was produced by Wojciech Oleksiak and Katy Lee produced the interview. Our music is by Jim Barn and Mariska Martina. Yeah. I'm Dominic Kramer. That's Katz Laszlo with the Europeans podcast. Adios!

K: Ciao!