Böll·Europe

Thirty years ago, in 1993, a cornerstone of European integration was laid: the European Single Market for goods and services. The European Single Market is a tool that facilitates trade between businesses across Europe. More generally, it was built with the idea of making citizens’ lives much easier and fostering prospects of economic growth and, therefore, well-being. Yet, this ground-breaking project of European integration has not been shed by criticism. For some, it streamlined economic integration at the expense of social Europe.  This Böll·Europe Podcast episode focuses on the future of the European Single Market, and how it can help achieving a greener, more social and digital Europe. Gail Rego interviews:

Anna Cavazzini is a Member of the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA Group. Anna chairs the EP Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, and she also seats in the International Trade Committee.

Phillippe Pochet is the General Director of the European Trade Union Institute. He is also a professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain and an associated researcher at the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work, Prior to becoming Director of the ETUI in 2008, Phillippe was Director of the Observatoire social européen for 16 years.

Read our web dossier "The European Single Market at 30 - New visions for a green Europe"

Pesticides are largely known for their negative effects on people and the environment. These substances are meant to kill pests, but their toxicity also destroys biodiversity and causes poisoning worldwide. Pesticides can be found everywhere: in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. That is why many highly dangerous pesticides are banned in the European Union. Yet, they are still produced and exported to third countries, and some Member States have found loopholes to allow the use of hazardous substances in agriculture. In fact, the European Union is one of the world’s biggest markets for pesticides, with almost a quarter of all pesticides sold in the EU. It is also a top exporting region. Just in 2018, European companies planned to export 81.000 tonnes of toxic chemicals banned in their own fields. The Böll·Europe Podcast episode #6 features our Pesticide Atlas 2022. How are pesticides used today? And how can the EU slash their use to protect people’s and the planet’s health? To uncover this complex topic, Gail Rego interviews:

• Sarah Wiener, Member of the European Parliament for The Greens/EFA group. She is also a beekeeper, chef, entrepreneur and organic farmer. Her whole life revolves around the quality of food and how it is produced. In the Parliament, Sarah seats in the EP Committees on Agriculture and on Environment, fighting for sustainable farming, animal welfare and good, healthy food for everyone. As rapporteur for the new regulation on the sustainable use of pesticides (SUR), she’s currently leading the negotiations in the Parliament.

Achieving a climate-friendly Europe by 2050 is the EU's long-term goal.  In the short run, it means stopping using fossil gas almost entirely much sooner. To limit global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels and stay in the Paris Agreement, the demand must end  by 2035. Yet, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine where gas is one resource caught in the war, is Europe phasing it down? We have seen how climate security and energy security have become two sides of the same coin. Although the EU's answer is renewables, ahead of a cold winter the European Commission has opened the door to a new wave of gas projects. This Böll·Europe Podcast thus focuses on the future role of gas in a climate-friendly Europe. Gail Rego speaks with:

• Julian Schwartzkopff, policy advisor on EU energy policy at Environmental Action Germany, focusing on gas market regulation and energy efficiency, the author of The Future role of gas in a climate-neutral Europe, a report based on the discussions of an Expert Group convened by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union and Environmental Action Germany.

Did you know...? To stay within the Paris Agreement target of 1.5ºC, the use of fossil gas must end by 2035. But how far are we from the climate target? According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, we currently live in a  1.1°C warmer world. A level that is already affecting Europe. We have all seen heatwaves and droughts becoming more frequent and worse. To get net zero, the European Union has approved several regulations. For instance, the Fit for 55 package, which is a set of proposals to update the EU legislation in areas such as transportation or energy efficiency. In the context of Russia's war against Ukraine, there were  measures put in place to avoid gas shortages this winter, such as REPowerEU or the Gas Storage Regulation, which allow EU Member States to look for alternatives in gas supplies.

Europride is “the” pan-European international event dedicated to LGBTQI+ pride and since 1992, the event has been hosted by a different European city every year. Serbian capital Belgrade is home to the 2022 edition of Europride, although the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić announced that the event would be postponed or cancelled. We look at the situation of LGBTQI+ rights in the Western Balkans, and what the cancellation of Europride in Belgrade means for civil society organisations fighting for LGBTQI+ rights in the region.

To discuss these relevant and timely topics, Gail Rego interviews experts who really feel the pulse of the situation. And who can be considered on-the ground activists. Ana Petrović is a Serbian LGBTQI+ activist, producer, advocate and queer woman working at Da se zna!. Da se zna! is an association of citizens founded in 2016, with the main focus on mapping and documenting the illegal treatment of LGBTQI+ people in the country. Liridon Veliu is a LGBTQI+ activist from Kosovo working as a Programme manager for the Center for Social Group Development- or CSGD. Likewise, the CSGD aims at supporting, protecting and advocating for the rights of LGBTQI+ community in the country.

With or without difficulties, according to the organisers, the LGTBQI+ community is going to walk on September 17. Everybody is welcome to join this historic occasion in the Western Balkans and in Europe. If you want to know more about Europride you can visit Europride2022.com.

Also, related to this topic, you can read the e-paper “The state of content moderation for the LGBTQI+ community and the role of the EU Digital Services Act”, and all our content on LGBTIQ+ rights.

Climate change and the physical boundaries of our planet make it imperative to transform the way our societies work and produce goods. Let’s say it out loud: we need a deep and great turnaround. In the first part of this podcast episode, we dealt with the issue of how to finance such a turnaround. In this second part, we want to dig a bit more into specific frameworks and policy proposals that could make the turnaround become a reality - proposals that could transform the way our economies and governments work. Gail Rego talks to Anna Coote, Principal Fellow, New Economics Foundation and Director of the Social Guarantee initiative, and Antonio Andreoni, Associate Professor of Industrial Economics at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and Incoming Professor of Development Economics at SOAS University of London. Their respective papers “The case for a Social Guarantee: Universal access to life’s essentials” and “Industrial Policy Reloaded: Shaping industrial ecosystems towards sustainable prosperity" are part of the publication “Making the great turnaround work: Economic policy for a green and just transition", a collaboration of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, the ZOE Institute for Future-Fit Economies, and Finanzwende Recherche.

Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that by mid-2021, 2.5 million people in the EU were refugees. Almost half of the latter are women. But is the journey to ‘safety’ safe for women? Refugees are people who have fled war, violence, or conflict and crossed an international border to find safety in another country. In fact, women and girls are exposed to unique forms of violence related to their gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and socioeconomic status. Has the EU laid the ground for women so they can fully exercise the right to protection? Have female refugees found ‘safety’ at the European Union’s borders? Gail Rego talks to two experienced researchers in the field of migration from a gender perspective: Madita Standke-Erdmann and Anila Noor. Madita Standke-Erdmann recently worked as a research associate on gender based violence against women, migrants and refugees for the University of Vienna, and she authored the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung e-paper "Intersectionality and refugee women: The shortcomings of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum from an intersectional perspective". Anila Noor is a refugee activist and researcher who recently became a member of the European Commission Expert Group on the views of migrants in the field of migration, asylum and integration. She's also the managing director of New Women Connectors, a refugee women led movement.

Talking about the Green transition is all good and well. The big elephant in the room though: who is going to finance a green transformation of our economies and societies!?  Boiling it down to the essence: do we do it through the public or the private hand? At the macro- or European level, this can be translated into critically assessing the role and impact of two types of actors or set of rules: the European Fiscal Framework and financial markets. How are the European Fiscal Framework and financial markets backing up the Green transition in Europe? And are they, actually?  To answer these very complicated questions, Gail Rego talks to Frank van Lerven (New Economics Foundation) and Carolyn Sissoko (University of the West of England). Their respective papers “Changing Europe’s Fiscal Rules: Unleashing public investment for a socially just Green Deal” and “The Role of Financial Markets in a Green Transformation” are part of the publication “Making the great turnaround work: Economic policy for a green and just transition", a collaboration of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, the ZOE Institute for Future-Fit Economies, and Finanzwende Recherche.

Demography was never a matter of just numbers or statistics. It was not just a question of birth rates or fertility rates. Historically, it was always part of social engineering by the state and by political elites. That's what Shalini Randeria, president and rector of the Central European University in Vienna said talking about the need to review how seemingly objective demographic data is used to inform EU policy-makers and why a re-framing and re-analysis of such data is needed. Randeria recently joined the authors of a new report on demographic discourse within EU institutions for an online discussion. Both the report and the discussion, which took place virtually on 16March 2022, were organized by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union office and the Gunda-Werner-Institut as part of the European Feminist Platform which connects activists, scholars and political decision-makers to explore how feminist best practice can positively shape the future for all, rather than just benefiting the few. Listen to this Böll·Europe Podcast episode presented by Esme Nicholson.

Böll·Europe Podcast is the podcast of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union office in Brussels, hosted by Gail Rego. From climate and energy transition to democracy and human rights. From the rule of law and digital policy to gender democracy and migration. From economic and social policy, to EU foreign & security policy. These are just some of the topics we will analyse in the Böll·Europe Podcast. Always, through a European and green perspective. And this, thanks to insightful conversations with policy-makers, experts and civil society and partners from the network of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung.

The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung is the German Green political foundation affiliated with the German Green Party. And if you wonder: who was Heinrich Böll? Heinrich Böll was a Literature Nobel Prize laureate. Someone who personifies the fundamental principles the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung stands for: defence of freedom and human dignity, civic courage, open debate and the acknowledgement of art and culture as independent spheres of thought and action.

We are thrilled to launch this new Podcast, which we hope it will be hub for great and innovative transformative ideas for a greener, more democratic, fair and just Europe. Subscribe now to the Böll·Europe Podcast on any platform where you get your podcasts. And follow our social media channels on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Stay tuned, and talk to you very soon!