We've got a heady mix of Romanian politics, online misogyny and animal-based chaos for you this week. Friend of the show Andrei Popoviciu joins us to explain why his dad and many other voters backed the TikTok-fuelled campaign of far-right Romanian presidential candidate Călin Georgescu. And we ring up three young people from Greece, Ireland and Lithuania to ask: what's it like being part of a generation that's increasingly divided over whether feminism is a good thing? Plus, hamsters. Lots of hamsters. 

The world may be transfixed by the US election results, but this was a huge week for news on this side of the Atlantic too. This week we're trying to make sense of the cataclysmic floods in Spain, and talking about another presidential election with major consequences  — the one in Moldova. Plus, a much-needed palate-cleanser: we're delving into a fascinating report into what European children are watching, and what grown-up film producers can do to make better stuff for kids.

Georgia's pro-Russian ruling party claims to have won last weekend's election — a fraudulent election, according to a mounting pile of evidence. A country that was once on the path to EU membership is now veering much closer to the Kremlin. Is there any hope left? We ring Anna Gvarishvili, Tbilisi-based journalist and head of the Investigative Media Lab, to unpack what just happened and what might happen next. We're also discussing two suitably scary topics in this Halloween episode: France's money problems, and the noxious substances spewing out of your gas cooker. 

A surprise left-wing election win? In Europe? In 2024? This week, we turn to our resident Parisian journalist to try to get our heads around what just happened in France, as well as what might happen next. We’re also looking at the other big left-wing winners of the week: the UK Labour Party. What might their new government mean for Britain’s relationship with Europe? Plus, Barcelona’s anti-tourist revolt and what may be the world’s toughest crackdown on Airbnb.

The far-right surged but the centre held; somehow the two are true at once. Nearly 100 members of the new European Parliament have yet to tell us which political family they’ll be joining. And as for who’s actually going to be running the EU’s institutions for the next five years – right now, it’s anyone’s guess. How can we make sense of these European elections? Alberto Alemmano joins us to help decipher a momentous, and very confusing, moment in Europe’s democracy.

Scandal-hit Socialists, a surging far-right, and winners that no one can get excited about — Portugal has just delivered some of this year's trickiest European election results. This week, we ring Politico reporter Aitor Hernández-Morales to untangle the situation. We're also talking about how ChatGPT could speed up Albania's EU membership bid, and Denmark's attempt to fix its horrible gender inequality (when it comes to statues at least).

This week: two referendums and some dodgy criminal reforms. We're talking about Swiss voters' decision to treat themselves to bigger pensions, and Slovakia's battle to stop cronyism under populist prime minister Robert Fico. And ahead of Ireland's vote on International Women's Day, the historian Caitríona Beaumont joins us to ask: why, according to the Irish constitution, is a woman's place still in the home?

Poland's rightwing populists are finally out of power. But what happens now? This week, our producer Wojciech Oleksiak and Warsaw-based journalist Claudia Ciobanu join us to explain why restoring Polish democracy is easier said than done. We're also talking about Finland's elections and the EU's much-criticised migration plan.

Being able to move freely around 27 countries is one of the biggest benefits of living in the EU. In reality, this is pretty hard if you’ve got a disability. This week we speak to Alejandro Moledo, deputy director of the European Disability Forum, about plans to start addressing that. We’re also diving into Greece’s elections and, with the help of producer Katz Laszlo, the decision to halt Iceland’s summer whale-hunting season.

The last time we interviewed the physicist Meganne Christian, she was working on the French-Italian research base on Antarctica. Now she has her eye on outer space. We ring her up to find out more about her new life as a reserve astronaut for the European Space Agency, and Europe's role in the new commercial space era. We're also talking about Pedro Sánchez's Spanish election gamble and a hopeful court verdict for same-sex Romanian couples.

We've been glued to the Turkish elections over the past week. But what does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's victory in the first round mean for the country, and for Europe as a whole? This week we ring up political scientist Ahmet Erdi Öztürk to find out. We're also talking about a big boost in Germany's support for Ukraine, a fake tan controversy, and the teeny tiny bridge behind the Mona Lisa.

This week we travel to the heart of the continent to ask: who is Ursula, and should you give a damn about her?

Katy's never voted in a European election before. This week she tries to make amends by figuring out, finally, what the European parliament is and what MEPs actually do.