Why are Europe's farmers so angry?

From France to Romania, Germany to Bulgaria, angry farmers have been blocking the roads. What's behind this wave of agricultural protests across the continent? This week we're getting to grips with the policies behind the food on Europe's plates with agriculture correspondent Sofía Sánchez Manzanaro. We're also dishing up some Polish recommendations and a slice of good climate news.

Sofía writes about food, agriculture and sustainability for S&P Global and is about to start a new role at Euractiv. You can find her on Twitter here.

This week's Inspiration Station offerings: Chopin's Nocturnes. played by Idil Biret, and Olga Tokarczuk's interview on the Paris Review podcast.

Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast, 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.

Many thanks to our friends at Outside/In for featuring our Oatly mini-series recently. You can find their show ⁠here⁠.

Producers: Katz Laszlo and Katy Lee

Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

INTRO - 0’22”

DOMINIC: Hello, and welcome to The Europeans, your weekly dose of the European elixir.

KATY: Oh, I don't like the sound of that. That sounds like medicine.

D: Well, yeah, elixir is a medicine, but it's a medicine that's gonna heal you and soothe you. And that's what we're gonna do with this podcast. Right?

K: Okay, sure.

D: You don't sound convinced.

K: I'm not, but I'm looking forward to being convinced in the next half hour or so, Dominic.

D: I just thought it was good to open the show with like a slightly different tone instead of just talking about the weather again. 

K: Well, we are British by birth, both of us. So talking about the weather is what we do best. But actually, so you know how I'm the mother of a small French person these days? 

D: Yeah.

K: I've been learning a lot of French children's songs, because I grew up with the English ones, but I feel like my French child should know, obviously, all of the actual French songs. And the French ones have turned out to be really, really dark. So like, my favourite one has got this very happy tune. But it's about the outbreak of a war between crocodiles and elephants. And so this crocodile is saying goodbye to his family because he has to go and fight and he might not see them again. It's very heart-wrenching. 

D: Oh, that's really sad.

K: But it made me think about the English language kids’ songs that I grew up with, and I realised that those are also quite dark.

D: Well, exactly. Isn't like ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ about the plague?

K: The plague, exactly. So I was wondering if this is a universal thing, like creepy children's songs. And I'm curious to know if it's the same in listeners’ native languages. So let me know! Drop us an email with the most disturbing children's song in YOUR mother tongue. Hello at europeanspodcast.com.

D: Can't wait to dive into that one.

K: Me neither. Anyway, Dominic, we're doing something pretty radical on the show this week, aren't we?

D: We are. This week, we had a really interesting conversation with the journalist Sofía Sánchez Manzanaro about the farmer protests that are happening all across this continent of ours. The conversation went on a bit longer than we expected, but everything she said was so interesting, and we felt it was just very important that everything should be heard. And for that reason, we've decided to play a slightly longer version of the interview in place of Good Week, Bad Week.

K: Woah!

D: But before you switch off, we will be bringing you cultural recommendations in the Inspiration Station afterwards, and I will promise to close the show off with a lovely happy ending. So only a small tweak to our normal format, I promise. 

K: I think this is the first episode with no Good Week, Bad Week for like five years or something. Crazy times. 

D: Well, apart from all those episodes about oat milk that we made. 

K: Yeah, we did do that. But yeah, we wanted to spend the first part of the show diving into this topic for a little bit longer than usual, because it does feel like a really big story right now and one that we want to understand a bit better. And these protests are happening really across a huge stretch of Europe. I mean, here in France, there are farmers blocking motorways and even dumping piles of manure outside government buildings. A similar thing is happening in Romania and Germany. In recent weeks, we've also seen Polish and Bulgarian farmers blocking the border with Ukraine. And over there in the Netherlands, where you are, it really feels like farmer protests have been making big headlines for – well, I mean, like really a couple of years already, right?

D: Yeah, I have to say it feels a bit like deja vu here because the farmer protest movement started in the Netherlands back in 2019. That began in opposition to a requirement for some farmers to reduce livestock due to the illegally high levels of nitrogen we have in the Netherlands. And boy, have we seen how farmer movements can affect politics in a country, over here. In the elections from which representatives are chosen for the Dutch Senate in 2023, the populist Farmers’ Party actually came top of those elections, they became the biggest party and they have the most senators in the first chamber here. So I really wonder how this farmers’ movement is going to affect other elections that are taking place in Europe this year, especially the elections taking place for the European Parliament in June. 

K: Yeah, it's funny, I remember starting to see these headlines from the Netherlands, saying that farmers were angry about nitrogen. And at the beginning, it seemed really random. And then the same thing happened not that long afterwards in Ireland. And then it really started to feel like this clash between the policies that are intended to protect the climate and the people on the ground who grow our food. Like, this clash is becoming a huge theme of the times that we're living in. And there are loads of other strains to these protests that need untangling too – like, to what extent is this about EU policy rather than national policies? What does it have to do with the war in Ukraine? And as you say, like not just in the Netherlands, but in other places, too, it really feels like populist and far-right parties are publicly aligning themselves with farmers' protests and farmers' interests, and going after farmers' votes. What are we supposed to make of that? So yeah, we really wanted to find someone this week who could give us some of the nuance and generally help us zoom out across Europe and make sense of this whole thing. And it turns out that we knew the perfect person already. Friend of the show, Sofía Sánchez Manzanaro. She is a Spanish journalist, she's based in Brussels, where she currently writes about agriculture and food and sustainability for S&P Global. She's also that rare Brussels person who's able to talk about their policy area like an actual human being. I hope our listeners in the Brussels bubble won't mind me saying that. But yeah, it's a great conversation that you're about to hear. Hope you enjoy it.

INTERVIEW WITH SOFÍA SÁNCHEZ MANZANARO - 05’46” 

Hi, Sofía! 

SOFÍA: Hello!

D: Thanks for joining us today to talk about this huge wave of farmer protests that's spreading rapidly across Europe right now.

K: Yeah, it really feels like it's everywhere right now.

S: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it has been at the top of the agricultural news agenda here in Brussels this week.

K: I bet. I mean, I guess the first thing I wanted to ask you, looking at all of this from Brussels, is: can all of these protests be seen as a kind of unified movement of European farmers with common problems? Or are there like very specific national contexts that are making all the protests different from each other? 

S: I wouldn't go as far as unified, because there are definitely national triggers to these protests, as in the case of Germany, the tax on agricultural diesel, a similar thing happened in France with agricultural fuels. And then Eastern European countries are facing issues related to Ukraine. But of course, there's a shared dissatisfaction among farmers that can be easily traced back to Brussels and the EU policies that are being discussed here, when it comes to agriculture, but also trade and sustainability, which have a huge impact on the sector. 

D: We'll come back to that in a second. But I first wanted to ask you about Ukraine. Could you give us a bit of the context around how the war in Ukraine has been affecting farmers, particularly in Eastern Europe?

S: Yeah, so basically, Ukraine, as we know, is a very important producer and exporter of agricultural products, particularly cereals and oilseeds. And when the war started, the traditional route for Ukraine to export these products, which is the Black Sea, was blocked. It meant that they needed to find an alternative route, and the EU set up the so-called solidarity lanes. So the solidarity lanes are basically the road, railway and inland waterway connections between Ukraine and bordering member states to be able to continue exports of agriculture products. However, this meant that now all agricultural trade goes through member states and it means Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc –Romania – are not very happy about this, because they themselves they are producers of grains and cereals, and Ukrainian grain is way cheaper. So it meant that there was a lot of speculation, it entered the market. They blame this grain for depressing prices for farmers. The European Union tried to limit last May until September these imports, they limited them during some months but then they had to phase out their restrictions, because it's really strange to impose trade restrictions on a country that you're supporting in a war. Then this led to the member states, so Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, etc, to impose their own restrictions on trade, which are illegal according to EU law. The problem of Ukrainian imports is also starting to impact other member states, for example, French producers and many other Western European producers of poultry meat, and eggs are not happy that there are no limits to how much poultry and eggs can enter now the EU, because their pre-war quotas have been suspended temporarily. So yeah, it seems like this is spreading. 

K: I mean, all across Europe, when you listen to interviews with farmers, they really say that they're struggling to make ends meet, like pretty much everywhere. And yet, when you look at the EU budget, like a huge amount of it is spent on agricultural subsidies, right? Like, how is it possible that we're spending all of this money on farming and that the individual farmers are struggling so much?

S: Well yes, as you say, a huge chunk of the EU budget goes to the CAP or Common Agricultural Policy, which rules farming in Europe and was a very important policy years ago. Years ago, it represented pretty much half of the budget of the EU, now it is around 30%. However, there are a lot of inequalities in how this budget is distributed. It’s a very complicated policy, and that's another complaint from farmers, it’s very bureaucratic. But also, it is based on area, the area of the farm. So bigger farms get more money, farms of crops but also livestock. This definitely doesn't benefit small and medium-sized producers, we can see that a big part of CAP payments goes to very big farms. There have been efforts from the EU to make the CAP more fair in the last reform. I mean, they also have to face high input costs. So basically, very high energy costs because of the war in Ukraine. Again, very high fertiliser prices when the war in Ukraine started. This just doesn't reflect in the price they they get for their products later. They also blame, you know, supermarkets for selling products with very high prices, then they don't see these benefits. And of course, they are fighting climate change as well. And in Europe, even in Hungary, drought made the maize production drop, it’s not even a Southern European thing anymore. Climate change is affecting pretty much every member state through flooding, drought. So it's not that straightforward that CAP payments are just a magical solution to all the problems faced by agriculture.

D: I think this distinction between the small, medium and the large farmers is really interesting, because I saw a report recently in the Netherlands where I live that about a fifth of Dutch farmers are millionaires. And I was quite surprised because people often think of all farmers as small independent businesses. I imagine it's different in different parts of the continent. Are there any particular parts of the continent where there are still mainly small farmers and that are therefore particularly badly affected by this discrepancy in the European policy system?

S: To put things into context, actually, the average EU farm is 17 hectares, which is not big compared to the US for instance, it’s 180 hectares. Where I come from, Valencia, it has one of the smallest size of farms. On average it’s 5.9. And other parts of Spain, like Castilla y León, it’s 63 hectares. So yeah, from five to 63 – huge. It’s just how traditionally this kind of crops were cultivated. In the case of Valencia it’s oranges, mandarins, etc. So, citrus. It means, of course, that it has a big impact on payments. But also, it's not the same to face hardship as a very big agro industrial company, enterprise, business than as a very small producer. In Valencia, for example, there's a lot of part-time agriculture, people have other jobs and they're agricultural producers part-time. It also – the payments, they differ a lot from country to country. Eastern European countries have been complaining for a long time that since they entered the EU, they were promised that their CAP payments will be increased. But this hasn't happened yet, really. And this means that farmers abandon the land. In Valencia, where I'm from, it happens a lot. We set a record this year in abandoned agricultural land. So of course, if the was that lucrative, this wouldn't happen.

K: So there are these imbalances in the Common Agricultural Policy in the background. And there is also this backdrop of a lot of farmers across Europe finding that their operations are coming up against policies that are intended to protect the environment. So things like limits on nitrogen, the banning of pesticides, cuts for diesel subsidies. How much of this kind of policy, this kind of environmental policy that's impacting farming, is coming from the EU?

S: So basically there was – the European Union launched the Green Deal, so this big plan to make the continent climate neutral. And inside of the Green Deal, it was the Farm to Fork strategy, which is basically an environmental plan but for agriculture and food production. There were, as you say, for example, targets to reduce pesticide use by 50% in Europe, chemical pesticides, among other targets like to increase the land under organic farming to 25%, etc. But at the end, the legislation that was meant to be implemented to achieve those objectives, particularly the pesticides one, has not been adopted. And it's very unlikely that it's going to come into force before the end of the European Commission mandate, which is in June. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have seen a shift in the European Commission ambitions regarding agriculture. All this Farm to Fork agenda was pushed so hard at the end of the mandate. Well, these ambitions have been fading out. And now it seems like the big legislation, like the pesticide cuts, even the nature resolution law, which was a lot to restore the EU's degraded ecosystems, and this involved farmers, you know, leaving some farmland without being cultivated to be able to bring back biodiversity, etc. This has been very watered down, at the end the legislation will be approved and there has been a political agreement, but it's not as ambitious. So I think it's unfair to say that the EU has imposed that many new rules when it comes to the environment. They have tried to, but they haven't succeeded in all of them. In most of them, really. It’s true that the new Common Agricultural Policy has some more environmental components. But most of them are also voluntary. So yeah, it is unfair to say that and I think there's a disconnection as well, in what farmers perceive, you know, what they hear, or the noise regarding some policies that some political parties make as well when it's actually implemented. It’s true that they still face a lot of red tape and bureaucracy, that the environmental measures have increased in the CAP. And the member states also impose their own environmental measures. But the Green Deal hasn't accomplished that much when it comes to agriculture.

D: I imagine it's very complicated to design policies to protect nature that also work with farmers and helping them continue their work. But does that always have to be in conflict? Are there any examples of where these policies have managed to align where farmers have had their interests protected, whilst the nature has also been protected? 

S: Well, for instance, President von der Leyen says that this doesn't have to be the case. That's why she launched a strategic dialogue between agricultural stakeholders to try to depolarize this debate between green farming and traditional farming, which doesn't have to be the case. They are, as I say, the first affected by the climate crisis, by the biodiversity crisis. So it's in their best interest to preserve soil and land. And I am sure most farmers are aware of this, that they need to preserve the fertility of their soil for their own survival. I guess an example could be the important increase in organic farming in Europe, there is this 25% target that the European Union wants to achieve, to have 25% of farmland in Europe under organic farming, which means using no chemical pesticides, so products that are approved for organic production. This has been a success, it is increasing. There are no policies in place that force farmers to do so. But most farmers are seeing a very interesting market niche to sell organic products, people are more and more aware of the damage that pesticides can cause to human health. And more and more pesticides are being banned. So I think organic farming is quite interesting. It's definitely a business model of its own. And organic farmers are also suffering from some of the problems that traditional farmers suffer from. They have also joined some protests in Germany, I believe. So it's not that they're necessarily all of them against environmental protection. But they definitely feel like they have not been valued for what they bring to society, that I guess, this is key.

D: It's interesting, you say that about farmers being the first people to notice environmental degradation and for being really important for them, because it's surprised me to see how much the farmers’ issue has been co-opted by far-right populists, who are often, almost always, people who deny that there needs to be any environmental regulation. Isn't there quite a serious potential downside for the farmers, if they allow extremist far right politicians to co-opt their cause? 

S: Yeah, I mean, of course, they will also lose some of the public support in general. The farmer protests have been supported by a large part of the population in the countries where they're taking place, in Germany. But then we look at the electoral success of this new farmers party in the Netherlands in the previous elections. Definitely people that were not farmers voted for them. So I mean, if they started to align with far-right narratives it’s going to be difficult for them. I think some segments are trying to distance themselves from this from these populists and this use of their problems for political games. But it's true that also some big farming unions in Europe are closely aligned with traditional political parties. I will say this is mostly the case for the European People's Party, that wants to become the farmers’ party in the next election. And von der Leyen understands that and that's why she kicked off the strategic dialogue right now. It is a way of trying to attract the rural vote to traditional conservatives. 

K: Something that you mentioned when we were chatting earlier, Sofía, which I found super interesting, is the fact that quite a lot of MEPs themselves are farmers. I’m just curious, like, how does that affect policymaking around farmingin the EU? I mean, it must be pretty personal for them. 

S: Yeah, it is very interesting. When you go to the European Parliament, the Agricultural Committee, indeed, many of them are farmers. From all political parties, I will say – from the Greens there are many organic farmers, but also from the right-wing parties. It doesn't happen that you talk to politicians that are also doing the job themselves that they are talking about – I don't know, if you go to the Health Committee, I don't think all of them are doctors. So it is rare, of course, in politics to see that. So yeah, debates are usually very emotional. Some people suggest that there could be a conflict of interest as well, because they're also recipients of CAP funds. But yeah, it is a very particular policy area, I will say. And I think that's why it's treated in this very special way by the European Union, allocating so much of its budget to it. At the end, it’s a policy to feed us. The European Union is also, well, the largest exporter of food in the world. So to maintain that, that very important production, subsidies and political will are necessary. The thing is, I think farmers are getting this contradicting message, when they have told them more than our lives, that you need to produce, produce, produce, and use a lot of fertilisers and pesticides to do so. Because after the wars in Europe, we needed to ensure self sufficiency, but not anymore. We have enough food. And it's true, we export a lot, but they don't understand how, now, to continue producing a lot without using that much pesticides and fertilisers, etc. So yeah, it's really conflicting. And for old farmers that have been doing this their whole life, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense for them, what's happening now.

D: To round up, I wanted to ask you before you went, if there's one thing you could change about EU farming policy, what would it be?

S: I think I will definitely align your farming policy with EU environmental policy. And that when we draft a new Common Agricultural Policy, we do it at the same time as we think about the EU's environmental ambitions, because it doesn't make sense to do this thing separately. And again, it will lead to conflicting views on agriculture. And it's just not going to be good for the environment, nor for farmers.

* * *

K: Something I think is really interesting at the moment when you zoom out and look at these protests across Europe, and how political parties are responding to them, is that left-wing parties have been so much worse at responding to it. Which I guess kind of makes sense, because it is so much easier for right-wing and far-right parties to paint themselves as, like, defenders of rural traditional life. And also left-wing parties have obviously been a lot more vocal on the need for big policy changes to fight climate change. But you know, left-wing parties are also supposed to be a voice for the poorest in our society. And it feels like they really need to get their act together and start campaigning for these votes, you know, and saying, like, ‘we do hear you and we do represent you’. Because if they don't, aren't they basically saying like, ‘You know what? We do just represent people in cities who ride bikes and don't understand where their food comes from.’ Which doesn't seem good to me.

D: Yeah, I agree with what you say. Although I think it's good to remember that not all farmers aren't necessarily the poorest in society, even though many of them are clearly struggling.

K: Yeah, it was really good to get an idea from Sofía of just how much variation there is in terms of like the size of the businesses that are involved in this system making our food.

D: Yeah, it makes it very difficult to kind of unpack that whole dynamics when you group all these, like these huge agricultural organisations that are dealing with millions and millions with like tiny local farmers, and all their interests are bundled together in one political movement.

K: Yeah, that's part of what makes it so complicated. So we are very grateful to have had someone to help us de-complicate it a little bit this week. Thank you so much to Sofía for helping us dig into the farmers' protests. Sofía is actually just about to change jobs, so you will very soon be able to find her articles about food and agriculture policy on the excellent European news website Euractiv. And she's generally a great person to follow on the internet if you're interested in these topics. You'll find a link to her Twitter profile in the show notes.

* * * 

K: We've been recording lots of these messages over the last couple of weeks for the very generous supporters of this podcast in the five bucks a month category. And these mini podcasts that we record as little individualised thank you messages, they've been particularly weird and unhinged recently. I've just been in a hysterical mood! I was actually crying with laughter in the last few.

D: It was true, we had to stop because Katy was just in tears.

K: So if you would like the chance to potentially hear me losing it completely, you might like to sign up for the five bucks a month tier of our Patreon page. But really, we are super grateful for any amounts, big and small, that you can spare to keep this little podcast of ours running. We are a proudly independent operation. There is no big media outlet paying our salaries. So we're very much relying on you guys, the listeners, to keep us in business.

D: If you heard last week's episode, you will have heard that there was a weird glitch with the Patreon payments and some people's subscriptions were cancelled automatically by the Patreon team. We were quite worried about this. But we've been very touched to see how many of you have gone out of your way to restart your subscription. And just to be clear, it only happened to a portion of our supporters. So if you didn't receive an email from Patreon saying your support has cancelled, all should be well.

K: Yay. Huge thanks go to our latest supporters, Bryce, Andrea, Eloise, Tomer, Rowena, Gregory, Thomas, Damien, Greig, Helen, Fons, and huge thanks also go to Karin, Nuno and Liam for increasing their donations.

D: Thank you all so much. Head to patreon.com/europeans podcast if you have anything from two euros in whatever currency to help us out each month.

THE INSPIRATION STATION - 27’42”

K: it is time to head to the Inspiration Station. What have you been enjoying this week, Dominic?

D: I've recently got back into listening to piano music whilst I'm working, particularly on this podcast. And I've been really enjoying the music of the Polish 19th century composer Frederic Chopin.

K: That guy.

D: I went through a phase of going to sleep with his Nocturnes playing on a cassette tape player when I was a child, so I find them really soothing. Now I think about it, maybe it's a really bad idea to be working to the same music that I used to go to sleep to. But I actually think it's more appropriate as podcast working background music, because it's got some really nice soft parts but then sudden dramatic moments, which I do remember waking me up when I was a child. Anyway, I'm listening to the same recording I listened to as a child it's all played by this Turkish pianist called Idil Beret. It's luscious, romantic music, I recommend it. Even if you don't think you like classical music, give it a try.

K: Lovely. It's funny how nostalgic the stuff that we listened to his kids to go to sleep is. One of my students was telling me that her parents are metalheads. 

D: Oh yeah? 

K: So she just goes to sleep, like, listening to death metal, she finds a super soothing. 

D: That's intense. 

K: Powerful associations.

D: I guess it's not so far away from the white noise that almost every baby I know goes asleep to these days.

K: Yeah, babies love the white noise.

D: Sorry metalheads, I should not be comparing metal to white noise, should I?

K: It’s not noise, it’s music! 

D: Probably just lost a big chunk of our listenership. What have you been enjoying, Katy?

Well, I've got another Polish recommendation for you along with Chopin. I am stealing my recommendation again this week, this time from producer Katz, and it is a podcast interview with the celebrated Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk. We've definitely recommended at least one of her novels, before but this is an interview with novelist herself, it’s on the Paris Review podcast. And Katz says it is a lovely conversation about how we relate to other species, and about Olga's feeling uncomfortable with the patriarchy, and finding alternatives in feminism. It's also an interview that has a really strong sense of place, it's set where she lives. And yeah, Katz says that it is an interview that feels intimate, like you're on a walk together and meandering through a conversation. A ovely recommendation, thanks Katz. D: Sounds lovely. I'm gonna listen.

K: You will find a link to that conversation with Olga Tokarczuk, and a Spotify link to that old Chopin, in the show notes.

D: Lots of things to put in your ear after you finished with this podcast.

K: Just one of your ears. 

D: Yeah.

HAPPY ENDING - 30’23”

D: It's time for a happy ending. And before we dive into it, I have to first give a slightly unhappy caveat, because otherwise I think I'd have a bad conscience and also probably listeners would start writing in. The caveat is the fact that we are not reducing our emissions quickly enough in Europe, or anywhere in the world for that matter, and the transition away from fossil fuels needs to happen quicker, urgently.

K: Great happy ending so far. 

D: That said, there is happy news in this area. According to a report from the Centre For Research on Energy and Clean Air, the EU's fossil fuel CO2 emissions fell in 2023 to their lowest level in 60 years. Yes, 60 years. Between 2022 and 2023, we saw an 8% drop in the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, the steepest year-on-year drop on record in these emissions apart from the 2020 drop, which was due to some situations that I think people probably remember. 

K: Oh, yeah, those ones. 

D: The analysts behind this study pointed out that this drop in emissions has happened despite growing economies, further proof that we do not need those fossil fuels to thrive. Not that we necessarily need growth, either. Oh, controversial.

K: More that in a future episode, maybe? 

D: Maybe. 

K: Why was 2023 such a good year for dropping emissions? Did something in particular happen? 

D: Well, part of it was just favourable weather. So yeah, we can be happy about that but we can't really pat ourselves on the back about that. The thing we can pat ourselves on the back for is that more than half of the drop in emissions were due to cleaner electricity production. That's thanks to the continuous rise of wind and solar capacity, as well as a rebound in hydropower and nuclear. So yay, some things are getting better. Remember the caveats from the beginning, but be happy for a bit, please.

K: Do you know what, I think this is a good happy ending. There is so much climate doom and gloom. And after last week's recycling interview, some people said like, ‘But how do we fix it, we need more focus on how we fix things and more ‘so what is improving’. So I'm glad to have this little dose of optimism, Dominic.

D: Happy to serve it to you.

* * * 

K: Next week, we are heading in the opposite direction from this week, we're heading into the cities of Europe to talk about the disgusting state of the air that we are breathing in cities like this one Paris, and your one, Amsterdam. How can we fix this disgusting air? Join us next week where we'll be trying to figure that out. In the meantime, can I please request that people come and hang out with me on the newish social media platform Threads?

D: Yeah, I'm not going to, but sure.

K: Why not?

D: I don't need any more social media in my life. 

K: But this feels like the one that could actually replace Twitter, but it's not happening yet. I had lunch with a friend this weekend who was describing what it's like to be the first person arriving at the gay club at like 10pm. And that is how I feel right now. I am like standing awkwardly in the corner of Threads, holding my drink. And it does feel like the party will get going eventually, but it's not quite happening yet, there's not quite enough people there to call it a party.

D: I've been that person many times by the way. It's partly because I feel tired, like I’m just not designed to be someone who like starts the party at midnight and then carries on dancing until five. I want to go to be in bed by one at the latest. 

K: Well, apply that to Threads. Please come and join me, we're @europeanspodcast. We're also on Instagram on the same handle, and we're still sort of desperately hanging on on Twitter, if you're also there, we’re @europeanspod.

D: This week's episode was produced by Katz Laszlo and Katy Lee, and mixed and mastered by Wojciech Oleksiak. Thank you all for doing all that wonderful work, I appreciate you all a lot.

K: We appreciate you too, Dominic.

D: Have a good week. 

K: ¡Hasta pronto!