This week of all weeks, your favourite Parisian reporter and Amsterdam crooner are here to bring you Everything Europe That Isn't Brexit. We’ve got two brilliant guests who couldn’t be more different from each other: YouTube tech guru Marton Barcza, aka TechAltar, is here to talk about why Europe hasn’t produced an internet giant to rival Google or Facebook. And Paris-based comedian Sarah Donnelly walks us through an ethical minefield: to open for Louis CK, or not to open for Louis CK?

Also: a runaway prime minister, political underwear, and the smell of defeat.

A hundred years on from the end of World War I, we wanted to look at an aspect of the conflict we don't often talk about: the role of millions of troops of colour who fought for European powers. The excellent Christian Koller, professor of modern history at Zurich University, is here to help us explore what life was like for African and Asian soldiers who were often dismissed as 'savages' while risking their lives for European governments.

Also: France faces its past, European conservatives face their future, and Dominic faces a lifetime of incessant church bells.

This week, the story of a painting that's been attacked with knives, chopped up, hidden in a cave from Nazis, and has probably had beer spilled on it. It also happens to be one of the world's greatest masterpieces. Our very special guest is Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum, here to explain why the Netherlands' national museum is going to be restoring The Night Watch while the whole world watches. And from Rembrandt to race, the playright Marjorie H. Morgan is on the line from Liverpool to talk about the difference between being black in Europe and black in America.

This week: freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom of speech, and freedom to attempt a robbery in Belgium even when you're not quite sure how robberies work. Dominic's been at the European Parliament's liaison office in Berlin chatting to Frank Piplat and Christopher Lade about what makes these elections different, and Sally Eshun is here from Are We Europe to talk about hate speech on both sides of the Atlantic. Also: naughty Italians, balloon sticks, and the beauty of toilets.

This week on the Europeans: bacteria, cathedral thinking, and a Spanish drug lord who got too cocky. We're guest-less this week due to illness so this is a mini-show, but we wanted to drop by and say a quick gutentag.

We'll be back with a fully-sized episode next week. Thanks so much for listening.

The Europeans is supported by Future Europe, a podcast from the European Investment Bank. Check it out here: eib.org/future-Europe

And we're supported by Are We Europe! Type 'europeanspod' for a 15% discount on your copy of the continent's most beautiful magazine at www.areweeurope.com

Whether you're a European passport-holder or not, so much in life is determined by the paper we carry in our pockets. Our guest this week is the Yemeni photographer Thana Faroq, whose brilliant project The Passport explores what it's like to hold a so-called 'unlucky' passport. Her work is on show in New York right now, but she's not allowed to travel from her home in the Netherlands to see it with her own eyes.

Also this week, Bram Hilkens is here to delve into the continent's hip-hop scene, Katy and Dominic have been gallivanting in Berlin, and Greece has been lightening the load for its donkeys.

The Europeans is supported by Future Europe, a podcast from the European Investment Bank. Check it out here: eib.org/future-Europe

And we're supported by Are We Europe! Type 'europeanspod' for a 15% discount on your copy of the continent's most beautiful magazine at www.areweeurope.com

What's in a name? A lot, if you're Macedonia. Emil Atanasovski is here to talk us through one of the most confusing questions in the Balkans, thank god. Transatlantic movie man Kevin Sachs is on the line to explain why Netflix is about to get a lot more European, with his tips for stylish German television thrown in for free. Plus bears, trains, and ancient weapons, we've got it all this week.

The Europeans is supported by Future Europe, a podcast from the European Investment Bank. Check it out here: eib.org/future-Europe

And we're supported by Are We Europe! Type "europeanspod" for a 15% discount on your copy of the continent's most beautiful magazine at www.areweeurope.com

This week a tiny horse made a grand entrance to Europe, and one of France's finest singers took his final bow. RIP Charles Aznavour, trailblazer and source of the most embarassing story of Dominic's life (listen til the end). Our guest this week is Monique Van den Abbeel, a Belgian campaigner for the visually impaired who is soon to be welcoming Europe's first guide horse into her home in Bruges. Yes, this is a thing, and we are very excited about it.

In Week 2 of our partnership with Are We Europe we also talk to co-editor Alexander Hurst about being an American on the continent. Check out the magazine's latest issue here: https://areweeurope.com

Also: a space race, a non-existent wall, and a message from the past.

This week on the Europeans: bad Italian wifi, a bad Danish bank, and badly behaved Spanish politicians. And spiders, lots of spiders. The Financial Times' Madrid correspondent Michael Stothard is on the line (kind of) to explain Spain's growing plagiarism scandal. And as part of our new partnership with the uber-cool magazine Are We Europe, we chat with its editor Kyrill Hartog about their latest issue The Ocean Between Us, all about Europe's complicated relationship with America.

Check it out here — and if you too believe that print is not dead, buy a copy! www.areweeurope.com

There's a big difference between a shelter and a home. After Sweden's elections cast a spotlight on the integration of immigrants, this week we're asking how housing and urban design can affect your ability as a newcomer to settle in a new place. Alice Pittini, research coordinator at Housing Europe, talks us through some of the best examples of housing designed to help refugees and asylum seekers get stuck in and start building new lives. We also chat about Viktor Orbán and the battle for Europe's soul, green jargon, and French superheroes. Plus, a listener sheds some light on Dominic's salty German food mystery.

Read Housing Europe's latest research on migration & housing here: https://bit.ly/2N6p89H 
And check out this neat project they're involved with, Designing Inclusion: https://www.desinc.org

Dominic's singing in Berlin, Katy's painting in Paris, and a forest is quietly growing just outside Oslo. Our guest this week is Anne Beate Hovind, project manager of a strange and wonderful project in Norway involving books, trees and the passage of time. Also on the menu, Florence is taking things OFF the street food menu and Poland is harnessing the power of the howling wind. Plus, a glimmer of hope after some dark days in Chemnitz.

This week on The Europeans: national branding done right (Sweden) and wrong (Theresa May's robot dancing). Or will the British PM have the last laugh on that one? The jury's still out. Swedish journalist Charlotte Boström is on the line to explain how her country successfully marketed itself as an eco-friendly feminist paradise. And as Dominic packs his bags for two months in Berlin, he and Katy talk clocks, democracy, fine food and Lego.

This week we're talking about a couple of journeys. Greece has gone from the depths of despair to something a little less like despair; Nick Malkoutzis of Macropolis (@NickMalkoutzis) is on the line from Athens to explain. And Frenchman Fabrice Pothier is here to tell us about his fun (?) 700-kilometre cycle from Foie Gras country to Santander, hoping to learn a thing or two about Europe. Also: an artistic mishap, virulent success, and a discordant initative by Berlin transport authorities.

This week, sex and the internet. For once it's not us making the filthy innuendos, although Dominic does his best. It's Lithuania's capital Vilnius! We ask tour guide Agneta Ladek (https://bit.ly/2BBRNyi) if her city is really 'the G-spot of Europe — nobody knows where it is, but when you find it, it's amazing'. Dimi Dimitrov is on the line to explain why changes to the way we regulate the internet in Europe would have made life harder for Wikipedia and more boring for everyone else. And one woman is on a quest to bring some ancient Norman sass to modern-day Guernsey.

This week, something a little different: Deborah Cole, a Berlin-based reporter since 1995, reads us her beautiful piece about the race to collect the memories of elderly Germans who lived through some of the most tumultuous events in modern history. Follow Deborah on Twitter @doberah, she's our favourite person tweeting from Merkel Land.

Also: an airborne mishap, an ingenious Spaniard, and irony, Slovenian-style, explained with the help of the brilliant Aljaž Pengov Bitenc (aka @pengovsky).

As you'll see in this week's episode, we're warming to two themes this season: urine, and the far-right.

Timo Lochocki (@TLochocki), an expert on populism in Europe, is on the line from Berlin to talk about why we SHOULDN'T talk about Steve Bannon's new venture on this side of the Atlantic. On a brighter note, Adrian Murphy's here to talk about Europeana, a lovely EU culture project that is currently collecting personal stories about migrating around the continent. Check it out at https://www.europeana.eu.

Also: good times for cash-strapped Berlin parents, bad times for Shakespearean amateur voiceover artists, and a disaster averted in Katy's hometown.

We're back! What's cooking, Europe? Apparently the whole continent. Greece has just suffered Europe's deadliest forest fires in a century, part of a spate of extreme weather all over the northern hemisphere. Just back from Athens, we ask incoming AFP science correspondent Patrick Galey (and his dog) whether this is the new normal. Follow @patrickgaley for the angriest climate tweets in town.

Things have been heating up in Germany too, in the form of a huge debate over identity politics. Dicle Akar, a teacher at the Berlin International School, gives us her thoughts on Turkish identity in Germany and the row over football star Mesut Özil.

Plus: how the summer's been going for Europe's biggest political egos, and the bright side of the forthcoming apocalypse.

Smiling may not come easily to Russians, as you'll hear about on this episode. But here at The Europeans we've got plenty to smile about this week:
1) Katy's at a pig farm
2) Dominic's latest opera is going great
3) We have fantastic guest Aljaž Pengov Bitenc on the line to talk about what we can learn from Slovenia's recent election. Follow him at twitter.com/pengovsky and hear us on his podcast Evropska četrt: https://bit.ly/2sUjkDk
4)Spain's Mr Handsome is off to a good start and the US ambassador to Germany is off to a bad one
5) We're going on holiday! We'll be back in a few weeks. Please stay subscribed because we won't be gone long and we'll likely be dropping by to say hello!

A longer version of our conversation with Akbar Ahmed on his book 'Journey into Europe' about Islam's role in the continent.

In Europe our clocks may be slow (see our March 13 episode) but our politics moves fast. Two new governments in a week! Katy and Dominic get you up to speed on what's been happening in Spain and Italy.

Our guest this week is Akbar Ahmed, one of the world's leading experts on Islam, who has just published a major new study on Europe's Muslims. We enjoyed our conversation so much that we'll be releasing it in full as a bonus episode, so look out for that later in the week.

Plus: how Spain's trashiest 1990s dance hit could save your life.