Greece's elections, whales, and disability rights

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.

You can follow Alejandro on Twitter here and find the EDF's podcast mini-series here. The reports Alejandro mentioned can be found here.

This week's Isolation Inspiration: 'The Employees' by Olga Ravn and 'Fanfic' on Netflix. Bonus: best-selling whale song album 'Songs of the Humpback Whale'.

Thanks for listening! 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. 

00:22 Busy busy busy, hot hot hot

02:52 Good Week: Iceland's whales

12:19 Bad Week: Greek leftwingers

22:42 Interview: Alejandro Moledo on the EU's (lack of a) disability policy

34:03 Isolation Inspiration: 'The Employees' and 'Fanfic'

37:57 Happy Ending: A bunch of things to celebrate this Pride Month

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, Katy.

KATY: Hello, how's it going?

D: It's fine. But this probably gives an indication of my state of mind right now – all I have written in my notes for the opening of this podcast is, ‘Busy, busy, busy, hot, hot, hot.’

K: That's a good album name.

D: Well, that’s something to come out of it. The ‘hot hot hot’ is sadly not hot, hot, hot in a good way. But yeah, I'm fine. How are you?

K: Also hot, hot, hot. I've taken to carrying this damp towel around with me, and I call it The Rag. And my husband hates it.

D: Oh, my goodness. That sounds disgusting.

K: It's so refreshing! I really recommend it to everyone.

D: Stop doing that.

K: No! It's great and useful. But apart from being hot, hot, hot, I have mostly been trying to digest what the hell just happened in Russia over the weekend. I spent Friday night glued to the internet with my mouth open. Were you doing that too, or were you busy having an actual life rather than scrolling endlessly? 

D: I was actually busy working, not having an actual life at all. But yeah, it does seem extraordinary and quite difficult to work out what it all means. But it's really interesting. 

K: The whole thing is absolutely nuts. It's obviously an extremely serious situation, but I did see one very funny tweet that suggested that if you're trying to negotiate a higher salary, try being more like Yevgeny Prigozhin and marching on the capital with thousands of heavily armed troops, because it might just get you somewhere. 

D: Yeah, I don't think that many of our listeners have access to a very violent group of ex-convicts. 

K: Maybe that's for the best. Moving on, what are we talking about this week? 

D: Well, this week, we're going to be looking into disability rights in the EU – something that was suggested to us by multiple listeners, actually. And we love it when listeners point out topics or guests that we should cover. And we found the perfect guest to enlighten us on this: Alejandro Moledo, Deputy Director of the European Disability Forum, an organisation that does very important work representing disabled people across Europe and fighting for better EU-wide legislation. And, spoiler alert: the EU legislation around disability is pretty lacking right now. But there are some optimistic signs on the horizon, so we'll be finding out about them later. But first, it's time for a very special Good Week, Bad Week.

GOOD WEEK - 2’52”

K: Why is this very special edition of Good Week, Bad Week? 

D: Well, I said ‘busy, busy, busy’ at the top, and because of that ‘busy, busy, busy’, I called in some luxury support for this week's Good Week, Bad Week in the form of producer Katz Laszlo, who has very kindly offered to take one of these segments. And I'm so happy you're here, hi, Katz! 

KATY: Hi Katz!

KATZ: Hi!

D: How's your week been, has it been good or bad? We only do binary here.

KATZ: It's been bad! No, it's been good because I get to talk about whales on the show today.

KATY: Yay! We love a bit of whale chat. Well, should we do that now? 

KATZ: Yes, please. 

KATY: Who has had a good week?

KATZ: It has been a good week for whales swimming off the coast of Iceland, because Iceland has announced a temporary ban on whaling this summer, and it doesn't look like whaling will be coming back for Iceland.

KATY: So it's not a permanent ban but it might become one? 

KATY: No, it's officially until the end of August. And Dominic has actually talked about this before on the show, that they were planning to wind down whaling by 2024. But the minister of food and agriculture has already suspended the licence for the only whaling company left.

D: Yippee! Happy whales.

KATZ: Yeah!

D: Is this whaling seas – is summertime whaling season? 

KATZ: Yeah, it's June until mid-September. And so there's like this awkward window of two weeks where there's an open space. 

D: Oh. 

KATY: I wonder what it's like being the only company left doing this, it's kind of crazy. 

KATZ: Yeah, the guy who runs it is kind of this character out of a book. He's called Kristján Loftsson, and he started whaling in 1956 on his father's ship when he was 13. 

KATY: Wow. 

KATZ: And he's been going ever since. I read an interview with him published in AFP, and he told a reporter, ‘Whales are just another fish. If they're so intelligent, why don't they just stay out of Iceland's territorial waters?’ Which I thought was pretty brutal.

KATY: Interesting argument. 

KATZ: Yeah. And there is a point to be made of like, we really do have a lot of emotions around whales. And you know, non-cute animals really do deserve some rights as well. But it is pretty wild how intelligent whales are. We're learning more and more. They can play, they recognise themselves in mirrors. And we've been listening to their songs for a long time, but we're starting to use AI to like decode how whales are talking to each other. 

D: Have we been listening to their songs for a long time?! I mean, I haven't personally been listening for a long time.

KATY: It’s not top of my Spotify. 

KATZ: Actually, one of the best selling albums of all time is a bunch of whale songs released in the 70s, which I think is phenomenal. So there's some evidence.

KATY: There you are! 

KATZ: But yeah, we've been using AI to decode what they say. And I was reading that there's a study that they have names, and it turns out that when they're swimming around, often they're looking for other whales, and they're saying their own name, and then the whale that they're looking for. So I'd be swimming around being like, ‘Katz! Katy. Katz! Katy.’ 

KATY: Which you do anyway.

KATZ: I think it's totally nuts, because that's how boats communicate too, like on boat radios, the captain will say, you know, ‘Northstar looking for Queen Elizabeth’ or something. So everyone's doing the same.

D: And why is this ban coming into effect now? Is whale hunting like a big serious threat to whales, even if there's only one company left? 

KATZ: It was, but indeed, now that whaling has been banned in most countries, whales are having more trouble with, like, collisions with ships and getting tangled in fishing nets, and also just the level of noise in the ocean. Like, it's really loud down there because of all of our shipping engines. And so there's actually also a move for us to design more quiet engines so the marine creatures don't have to deal with this like huge amount of sound. Anyway, whale hunting is no longer the biggest threat to whales. But it is a really cruel process, and that's why the ban has come in now. There are animal welfare rights that say that animals should be slaughtered immediately, they should die quickly if they're killed. And there were some reports showing that this Icelandic whale company was still using multiple harpoons, and that it sometimes took a really long time for the whale to die.

D: Horrid. 

KATZ: Yeah. 

KATY: And, stupid question: why do we kill whales anyway? Like, is this for meat presumably? 

KATZ: Yeah, I was looking this up a few years ago actually, like why whaling was so huge in the first place. And I learned that initially, like, hundreds of years ago, when it was massive, it was being used for lamp oil. So in a lot of ways, it was like our source for energy, we would light our houses with whale oil. 

KATY: Oh, yeah!

KATZ: Nowadays, the main reason is whale meat, which is eaten by humans, but it's also sometimes in pet food. Like, surely the pets can eat something else? But anyway.

D: Yeah.

KATZ: I read a study that said that in Iceland, 84% of Icelanders have actually never tried whale meat. So it's really just like a very small diehard group of people who eat whales on the regular. 

KATY: Does it get exported, though? Because in Japan they eat whale meat, right? 

KATZ: Yeah, so it's mostly going to Japan. But one of the sort of more grim reasons why this ban has come into effect is that Japan has started commercially whaling again after 30 years of not doing that, which means that there's just almost no reason for Iceland to do it anymore. On a more jolly note, the banning on commercial whaling has been really effective. So it was banned, there was the international whale moratorium in 1986. And at the time, whales were really endangered. Like, there were only 450 humpback whales left in the world, and for some sorts of whales it's still that kind of numbers. But really hopefully, in 2019 apparently we had 27,000 humpback whales again, just like in a couple of decades. So that's really, really exciting.

KATY: Wow!

D: That is amazing. 

KATZ: Yeah. And, as Dominic has told us before, orcas, or killer whales, are actually giant dolphins. But I thought use this excuse to return to the orca revolution happening in Spain. 

D: Yeah, you – your Instagram, Katz, lately has just been full of orca memes.

KATZ: I love the orca story! 

D: I’ve really been enjoying them.

KATY: Hang on, I'm behind on this – what is this orca meme thing? 

KATZ: Okay, so there's this group of orcas, 15 orcas off the coast of Spain, who have been attacking boats for several years already. And a couple of boats have even been sunk. Some people have gotten hurt, but it seems like the orcas are not interested in attacking the humans – like both the scientists studying them and the sailors say that they're really not hunting. And it doesn't seem that aggressive, and they're really specifically going for sinking the boats. Which is really weird. 

KATY: So they're just mad at humans? 

KATZ: Yeah, there's a couple of different theories which are all excellent. Some say the orcas are annoyed because there were less boats during the pandemic, and now they're like annoyed that the boats are back. But my favourite theory is, it's all around the matriarch of this pod. Her name is White Gladys. 

D: Of course it is.

KATZ: Excellent name. 

D: It's a great drag name.

KATZ: It really is. I really wanted it to be her name, but it's just a human given name. It's not the orca-given name. But anyway – 

D: [whale noises] 

KATZ: [Whale voice] White Gladys! Some scientists are saying that she was traumatised by some run-in with a boat and that she's like out to get the boats again as sort of – okay, the internet has called this revenge, the scientists have not called it revenge.

D: Okay. 

KATZ: And that like all the other 14 orcas are just copying her. But there's really no evidence, there's no evidence for like the run-in with the boat. So that's a little odd. 

D: The most exciting theory that I managed to get from your Instagram meme-sharing –

KATZ: The Dominic theory of the orcas.

D: Well no, it’s very much yours, that it's like all that anti-capitalist movement for the whales, who are part of the resistance.

KATZ: The internet like loves this story. There are all of these amazing memes and taglines like ‘capsize the rich’, because it seems like they're specifically into sinking fancy yachts.

KATY: Wow! 

KATZ: Like that's their favourite kind of boat. Because there was this one sailor who's been on several boats that have been attacked, and he says that they're getting really a lot better. So now instead of swimming up and like communicating with each other, they like silently swim up to the boat, bash the rudder off, and then swim away really efficiently. The internet loves it, and it says that they're getting better and better orca-nised. That's obviously not me that came up with it, no credit whatsoever. Anyway, I'll be sharing all of these memes on our social media. Thank you very much for having me.

D: That was wonderful. Thank you, Whale Correspondent Katz Laszlo. Hang around for Bad Week, Katz. Who's had a bad week?

BAD WEEK - 12’19”

KATY: Well it’s much more boring than whales, so apologies, but I'm giving Bad Week to Greek left-wingers after a rather resounding victory in Greece's elections over the weekend for the Conservative party New Democracy. The conservatives got 40.5% of the vote, which wins them an absolute majority in parliament. While Syriza, the main leftwing opposition part,y they did pretty miserably – they got less than 18% of the vote, which was an even worse score than they got in the last elections just a few weeks ago. 

KATZ: Didn't Greece just have elections? Why are they doing it again? 

KATY: Yeah, they had new ones because basically, the conservatives did pretty well in those elections back in May, but they fell just short of getting a majority in parliament. And the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he thought, ‘Well, you know what, I really want a proper majority.’ Because as we all know, not having to faff around with forming a coalition makes life a lot easier. So Mitsotakis gambled on basically forcing a quick repeat of the election and begging Greek voters to give him a majority. And that gamble has paid off pretty handsomely, because there’s this quirky rule in the Greek political system that says, if you do an election re-run, the biggest party gets a bonus number of seats. And of course, New Democracy came out top again. So they got these 50 extra seats as a kind of bonus prize for winning. So it's a pretty decisive outcome. I should point out that the turnout actually dropped between the two elections, less than 53% of people voted over the weekend.

KATZ: Wow!

KATY: Yeah. Not great. Apparently politicians had spent quite a lot of the week before begging voters to actually show up at polling stations, because it's summer, and a lot of people are at the beach right now. So it doesn't really have the kind of legitimacy of a vote in which everyone voted. But it's still a really strong outcome for the conservatives. 

D: I find these results quite surprising, because the stories we hear from Greece and the stories we've talked about on this podcast lately, like the terrible migrant boat disaster, the spying scandal – how did they do so well?

KATY: Because of the economy, essentially. So the Greek economy is in a heck of a lot stronger a position than it was when it was just emerging from the financial crisis five or 10 years ago. And people can really see and feel that. Like Greece's economic growth has been twice the eurozone average this year; wages are going up, people's pensions are going up. Investors are coming back to Greece. It's a really different story from what the economy was like when I was reporting in Greece like nearly a decade ago, when Syriza were in charge. Like back then Greece was constantly teetering on the brink of leaving the euro, and it was all about these bailouts that Greece was getting from the EU and the IMF, and the horribly strict conditions attached to them, which meant that normal people's household finances and their pensions were just stretched incredibly thin. Mitsotakis has been in charge since 2019. He came in promising to put Greece's economy on a more stable footing. And it's difficult to argue that he's failed to do that. So even though there is a cost of living crisis in Greece, similar to a lot of places, and a lot of Greeks are feeling squeezed again, there is a fairly high level of trust in Mitsotakis to carry on steering Greece in a generally more prosperous direction. So voters are, quite frankly, willing to ignore quite a lot of the other stuff going on. Like this big spying scandal, for example – it should be really scandalous that Mitsotakis’s government presided over all of these people being wiretapped, but it just hasn't really cut through. And as for the migrant boat sinking, this terrible disaster that is thought to have potentially left hundreds of people dead off the coast of Greece two weeks ago, even though there've been questions over whether the coastguard could have done more to stop the boat from sinking, the tragedy didn't really affect the election campaign very much at all. And in fact, voters quite like the fact that Mitsotakis has a pretty tough migration policy and wants to keep Greece's borders as tightly closed as possible. 

KATZ: That's really grim.

D: And even grimmer, I think I read that some far-right parties, anti-immigration parties did also really well, am I right? 

KATY: Yeah, worryingly so actually. These three small far-right parties together got nearly 13% of the vote, one of them with the backing of the former spokesman of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, who voiced his support from prison. And actually, when you look at that, and how well the mainstream conservatives did, this is actually the most right-wing parliament Greece has had since the end of military rule in 1974. 

KATZ: So this is a really bad week for the Greek left. And do you think they could have done anything to avoid this? 

KATY: I mean, look, it's pretty hard for the Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras to look like an attractive prospect right now. He's now facing serious questions over whether he should still even be leading his party. It's not like there's an obvious charismatic person to take over from him. But at the end of the day, Tsipras is the guy who led Greece in those really hard post-bailout years, and he's someone who went back on his promises during that time: he said he was going to stop austerity, and in the end, he signed Greece up for more austerity. Which is really different from Mitsotakis, who has essentially done what he said he would. So it's not really surprising that Syriza did pretty badly. They didn't really offer a convincing alternative vision of what Greece needs right now. Like even on migration, which is where they could have said something very different from the government, Tsipras seemed too scared of public opinion to say anything top pro-migrant, which is a bit of a change from his previous policy – he's generally tried to come across as someone who is humane and welcoming when it comes to refugees. And because they didn't have much of an alternative vision to offer, the opposition focused a lot on trying to make Mitsotakis sound kind of scarily autocratic. You know, like pointing to these rule of law worries that have been coming up increasingly in Greece. But that didn't seem to really resonate with voters. And neither did their campaign of pointing out that Mitsotakis is part of this quite nepotistic political dynasty. His dad was prime minister, loads of the family are in politics, but people just kind of shrugged it off and said, ‘Oh well, at least he's improving things.’ Mitsotakis managed to rather successfully present himself as this like competent, managerial-type figure. You know, like he went to Harvard, he used to be a management consultant with McKinsey, he knows about businessy stuff. So you take this kind of competent technocrat image, and you pair it with a pretty hard-right immigration policy, and you've got yourself a winning combo. And evidently, the voters liked it enough to give him another four years in power with an even bigger mandate than when he was first elected four years ago, it should be said, and that's, that's pretty rare in Greek politics. 

D: The usual question that I know you hate answering, but can we see this as part of any kind of Europe-wide trend? 

KATY: I do usually resist this question, it's true, because as I've said previously we have so many elections on this continent that I feel like you can just make a country's election results feel like part of some kind of trend. But there are quite a lot of people pointing out that Southern Europe as a region does seem to be moving quite strongly to the right. So you've got Giorgia Meloni’s government in Italy, obviously; Spain's elections coming up next month with the right expected to do well; and then this very decisive result in Greece. And it does feel like there's a bit of a pattern here, in terms of countries that suffered horribly during and after the financial crisis, and then as a result, you had all of these left-wing anti-establishment parties doing really well in those countries, promising to break the system. So we saw Syriza taking power in Greece, Podemos in Spain, the Five Star Movement in Italy. And then as the years have gone on, and the system hasn't been smashed, voters have got disillusioned with these parties. And when you look at the wider left wedge of the political spectrum, I hate to say it, but the Greek election is yet another European election where we've seen the left really fracturing and the vote split between numerous different parties. Greece really seems to be one of those places where, if the left want to have a chance at a comeback, they really need to do a better job, not just at having a compelling vision, but presenting a united front.

* * * 

D: Would you like to do something that might put a smile on our faces? Well, I’ve got an idea. Why don't you sign up to become a supporter of this podcast on the website patreon.com? You can donate as little as two euros a month, and you can also pay for the year upfront if you really don't want to have another monthly direct debit coming out of your account. In exchange, you will be able to bask in the fact that you are contributing towards keeping this little podcast of ours alive. You'll get access to our secret Facebook Patreon group, and depending on how much you donate, you might get a personalised voicemail from Katy and me, a postcard from Paris or Amsterdam, and even a very rare tote bag featuring our original podcast logo with a very angry Emmanuel Macron screaming on it. 

KATY: I just had a great idea. 

D: Yeah? 

K: We could expand our merch range and introduce Macron-themed heat rags. 

D: That's a terrible idea.

K: But who wouldn't want to sort of dab themselves, in this horrible hot weather, with the face of Emmanuel Macron? 

D: A scorching Emmanuel Macron. 

K: I'm going to research this. We have five lovely people to thank this week for supporting the show. A huge huge thank you goes to Eva, Paul, Martino, John, and last but not least, the first person to have ever supported this podcast a few years ago: Justin-Paul, who has generously increased his donation. Thank you all so so much. 

D: Thank you all! 

K: You can join these wonderful people by heading to patreon.com/europeanspodcast.

INTERVIEW WITH ALEJANDRO MOLEDO - 22’42” 

K: The euroskeptics who walk among us often complain that the EU encroaches too much on the territory of national governments, and that it makes laws on way too many things these days. But the fact that we don't currently have any kind of coordinated EU disability policy is one of those things that makes you realise just how much difference you can make to people's lives by having certain things that are designed to make people's rights, and their experiences of public services, much more uniform across 27 different countries. We've recently had a couple of listeners of this podcast reach out to us and suggest that we cover this issue on the show, particularly since the European Commission is planning to introduce some kind of proposal for a new EU law in September on the introduction of an EU disability card. What is this card? How would it work exactly, and would it do everything that people with disabilities need it to? There is no better person to ask about this plan than Alejandro Moledo. He is the Deputy Director of the European Disability Forum, and someone who has been testing out a pilot version of the EU disability card. We gave him a ring to find out more.

D: We tend to think of freedom of movement as a fundamental principle of living in the EU, and that if you're a citizen of one EU country, you should be able to travel freely anywhere in the rest of the bloc or even move your life there permanently if you want to. But in reality, this is pretty hard for people with disabilities. What kind of obstacles do they face when moving around Europe? 

ALEJANDRO: That's a really good question. And indeed, that's one of the many barriers that persons with disabilities face in enjoying their EU citizenship. So, freedom of movement is not as easy for persons with disabilities because of a wide variety of reasons. Some of them are lack of accessibility in terms of transport services, in terms of the built environment. Another reason is the lack of portability of your support services. So for example, if you want to move to another member state and you need personal assistance, or any specific support for your disability, you cannot automatically have those when you move and you need to restart an assessment of your disability in the new country of residence. These are just two of the barriers that we face. There are others, but these could be two of the main important ones. 

K: So the EU is belatedly trying to address its lack of a disability policy, to some extent, at least. There's this plan for an EU disability card. You're actually one of the people who's been trying out a pilot scheme for the card, which has been running in eight European countries since 2016. I think the pilot scheme actually ended in 2019, but most of the countries carried on using it. What exactly is this card, what is the idea behind it? 

A: The idea is to ensure that when you travel, when you move across Europe, your disability will be recognised. Remember that there are 70% of disabilities which are invisible, and therefore, for example, when you try to access assistance in an airport or train station, or when you try to access the reserved seats for persons with disabilities, or an accessible entrance, or preferential treatment when it comes to, you know, discounts, for example, to enter into a museum or a sports facility, that is when you need to prove that you have a disability. And this is what the European disability card tries to support. The pilot project was very much limited to culture, leisure, sport facilities, for this kind of more tourism approach. And then the service providers in the different member states had to kind of recognise that card. So it's not automatically that you travel with this card and your disability is recognised, but the specific theatre that you want to go in, or the cinema, they need to accept the European disability card. So this was the pilot project, but obviously, from the European disability movement, we want to go farther, and we want to ensure that with this card, you ensure mutual recognition of disability no matter which specific service we are talking about. 

D: What was your experience, testing out the card? I mean, has it been helpful in any specific ways? 

A: Yes, it's been helpful. In my case, in Belgium, for example – because I'm originally from Spain, as you can guess from my accent and my name. But I moved to Belgium back in 2013. And when I moved to Belgium, I have a visual disability which is recognised in Spain. And I had to go through, you know, the disability assessment in Belgium in order to access free public transport or reasonable accommodation in my workspace. And in Belgium in the past, they didn't have disability cards. For example, in Spain, we do have disability cards, but obviously that card doesn't work in Belgium. So when I came, I had to go through this disability assessment – actually twice, one from the French-speaking community and one for the federal government for different reasosn, which was a bit surprising. 

K: Sounds very Belgian. 

A: Yeah. And then once this process was over, obviously, I requested the European disability card, which in Belgium is accepted in many different places and recreation activities and so forth. So I kind of use this card as I use the Spanish disability card in Spain, but in Belgium. And then I used it as well when I travelled to Italy, for example, I was using the European disability card. And it worked well – it looks, you know, official, let's say, and that kind of helped me a lot, because my disability sometimes is not that visible, because I don't use the white cane, and therefore the card helped me, you know, so people don't look at me with a strange face. Like, ‘Why this person is asking for discount for disability?’ Or ‘Why this person wants to get into, you know, the area in the concert hall in order to be closer to the stage? Maybe is he trying to take advantage?’ So with this card, we kind of avoid all these situations. And that's what we want to achieve with the upcoming card, which will be the official one. So we know that the Commission, the European Commission will launch not the card itself, but the legislation that will develop the European disability car.d and they will do so in September. So we are all very much looking forward to seeing the proposal. And the good thing is that we feel there is political will from all EU institutions to really have this proposal adopted and to get an EU-wide European disability card. 

K: It sounds super positive. But we heard from a listener that the card scheme is probably not going to cover certain things like labour protection, the rights of people with disabilities to education, for example. Are there things that you would like to see in the EU's plan that actually aren't being addressed? 

A: Indeed, from EDF, from our members, we want to go one step farther. It’s not just about ensuring that there is a mutual recognition of disability, let's say, across EU countries when it comes to tourism and like short stays in a country, but also temporary protection while you move permanently to another member state. We believe that the card should also give you access to the support you need in order to do this transition while your disability is assessed. It’s very difficult, and we don't feel immediately that this is a good idea, to kind of harmonise a European-level disability assessment. So countries have different approaches to disability. Unfortunately, most of them are very much based on, you know, a medical approach. And having, you know, a harmonised approach to the disability assessment could be counterproductive, because then we risk that EU as a whole will take the minimum common denominator. Because obviously countries have different ways to understand that a person has a disability or not, and what would be the support that this person needs to receive. So the card will not go into that direction. But that's why we want at least to ensure that for a temporary period, the card will cover you when you move to another member state. 

D: If we look at those individual countries, which countries in Europe have particularly impressive policies when it comes to making life easier for people with disabilities? And, conversely, which are the countries that you feel are lagging behind? 

A: That's a question that we get a lot but that we cannot answer because, you know, disability’s such a broad and diverse social group. I mean, it's the perfect example of human diversity. And the kind of policies that countries put in place may be good on certain areas or for certain disability groups, but may not be sufficient for others or in other areas. So we cannot say, ‘Okay, this country is the leading role on disability policies.’ There are certain countries that perform better than others in certain aspects. And for this, I can refer you to the series of reports that we publish every year, the EDF human rights report, in which we look at a specific policy area. So for example, last year, we looked at Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on political participation, and we compare the legal and practical barriers that persons with disabilities have to participate in the European elections, for example. And then we see that for example, there are only 13 countries that uphold the right to vote to all persons with disabilities without exceptions, whereas there is still 14 countries in which certain persons with disabilities, particularly persons with intellectual, or psychosocial disabilities are denied the right to vote. We recently launched the one concerning employment in which we look at the employment gap of persons with and without disabilities in all EU member states. Overall, in the EU, there is a 25% gap between persons with and without disabilities who have jobs. And we look at the different systems put in place at national level to support the access to the open labour market. So it really depends on the policy area and with these reports, we kind of try to compare on different aspects.

K: Thank you so much to Alejandro for joining us. The European Disability Forum actually have their own podcast mini-series about their history as an organisation and how it’s shaped the fight for disability rights across Europe. Check it out, you will find a link in the show notes.

ISOLATION INSPIRATION - 34’03”

K: What have you been enjoying this week? 

D: Well, to avoid me giving you all another stupid recommendation like fennel – apologies – 

K: Why is that stupid? 

D: I don't know, I felt embarrassed after I said it. But I guess it's fine. But anyway, this week, I've decided to lean on our listeners for my Isolation Inspiration and share something with you that was sent in by a listener, Maia, who was actually one of those people that Katy mentioned earlier who recommended we look into disability rights. So honestly, we should be giving Maia some kind of researcher credit this week. 

K: Maia gets Good Week. 

D: Indeed. Thank you for doing our job, Maia. And it's just generally really nice when people get in touch with ideas like this, because then I think we get a more diverse picture of what there is out there in Europe, so please keep doing it. Maia’s recommendation was a Danish sci-fi novel by Olga Ravn called ‘The Employees’. Maoa says it is very weird but fun. And Maia is by no means the only person who has enjoyed this book. It was nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2021, and it was celebrated by critics. For example, The Guardian described it as ‘an audacious satire of corporate language and the late capitalist workplace and a winningly abstracted investigation into what it means to be human’. It seems to have a really interesting structure, it's made up of reports collected from crew members on a spacecraft, crew members that – some of whom are humans, some of whom are humanoids. I've already ordered my copy, so let's all take Maia’s advice and have some fun, weird reading for the summer. ‘The Employees’ by Olga Rav’n. 

K: Nice. I'm going to add that to my summer reading list. 

D: What have you been enjoying, Katy?

K: I watched a Polish film on Netflix called ‘Fanfic’, I fancied something in the kind of angsty young adult genre. And I'd seen one of our Polish listeners recommend it on Twitter, so I thought I'd give it a go. And it's a nice film! Even though it made me incredibly glad that I am no longer a teenager, because it was such a reminder of how painful it can be at times. But it's a film about a group of queer teenagers at a Polish high school, dealing with love and homophobia and transphobia, and parents trying to come to terms with their kids telling them, ‘This is who I am, whether you like it or not’. And there are some really beautiful and some really heartbreaking moments in it. I love these little moments in the film where they use these clever visuals to get a sense of what it feels like to put on clothes that make you feel like you, or just feeling like you're in a place where you really belong. I probably missed some things, watching it as someone who is straight and cis and also not Polish. But I found it a very moving film nonetheless. Although if I have one criticism it’s that they tried to do a little bit too much, it felt a bit like the producers had a checklist of teenagery themes that they needed to tick off. And that might be because the film is based on a novel, so they were trying to squeeze a lot into a shortened version of the story. Also for a film called fanfic, where the protagonist is a teenager who writes fan fiction, they really stopped talking about that at some point, I found it quite disappointing as someone who was, who actually did indulge in reading fan fiction as a teenager quite a lot, and was looking forward to that. But other than that, if you are up for a heartwarming queer drama set in a Polish high school, I recommend it. It's called Fanfic, and it is on Netflix.

D: Not the most glowing review! 

K: Well, you know, it's a caveated recommendation. Am I allowed to do that? We do caveated Good and Bad Weeks all the time, so – 

D: That’s true. 

K: I'm branching out.

D: We’re going to start rec – kind of half-recommending things on Isolation Inspiration.  Let's not make that a thing. But I appreciate your honest criticism.

HAPPY ENDING - 37’57”

D: In much of the world, it is Pride Month right now, even if in some parts of the world it's celebrated at other times of the year. But I thought it was reason enough to celebrate and use this Happy Ending here to mention a few bits of positive progress that I've spotted around Europe over the past weeks. 

K: A bumper crop of happy endings!

D: Yeah, there have been almost too many good news, LGBTQ+ stories to keep up with, so sorry if I'm not mentioning them all from the last few weeks. But I thought I'd cheer you all up, and myself, by listing a few of them. The first is from Estonia, where same-sex marriage was legalised last week, voted through by their parliament, 55 votes to 34, making Estonia the first Baltic country to legalise same-sex marriage. 

K: Yay!

D: Yay. There was also good news from Iceland where so-called conversion therapy was banned with a unanimous vote in the Icelandic parliament. Ireland also announced last week plans to ban conversion therapy alongside a historic decision to disregard historical convictions for consensual sexual activity between men. In the UK, they also announced an extension of the pardoning and disregarding of historical homosexuality convictions. And for the first time in the UK, this also extends to women who have often been overlooked – there were women who were also convicted of crimes connected to being gay. They will also be pardoned. And finally, in Latvia, in a few weeks time, a man called Edgars Rinkēvičs will be sworn in as a president and he will become the first openly gay head of state in Europe, which – I was actually quite surprised when I read that, I thought surely there'd been loads of gay heads of state. But there haven't. There have been lots of gay prime ministers – lots, they've been a few, some gay prime ministers. But this is the first gay head of state. So quite an amazing step forward. Happy Pride Month to you all.

* * * 

K: We will be back next week. If we haven't killed each other. We're hanging out in real life over the weekend! I'm excited to see you Dominic.

D: Yippee! Yeah, I'm excited to see you too. You should check out our Instagram, @europeanspodcast, where we will try our best to update it regularly while we're together. Although I will just be so lovingly staring into Katy’s eyes the whole time that I may forget my phone is even there. 

K: Why are you allowed to do that when I'm, like, banned from looking at you while recording? This feels unjust. And creepy. 

D: Yeah, you're right. The world isn't fair. 

K: You can also find us on Twitter @europeanspod. And for longer feedback, or if you want to suggest ideas for things we should be covering on the show, we always love hearing from you via email, hello at europeanspodcast.com. 

D: Yeah, it was emails that kicked us up the butt to discuss disability policy in the EU this week. So yeah, keep your suggestions coming. 

K: The show was produced this week by me and Wojciech Oleksiak. 

D: Thank you, and thank you also to Katz Laszlo for stepping in and helping with Good Week Bad Week. 

K: Yes, thank you, Katz!

D: See you next week. 

K: Bless bless!

D: ¡Adiós!