The energy model in Europe has been defined by decades of liberalisation and privatisation. The marginalist pricing model allows big energy companies to sell cheap renewable energy at the price of expensive fossil fuels such as gas and coal, giving rise to fluctuations and speculation with all kinds of windfall profits. While people in Europe struggle to make ends meet and pay unprecedented bills to heat and light their homes, European energy companies have hit the jackpot.

The Left in the European Parliament has been campaigning for a radical change in the EU energy model to ensure that the energy system serves people and planet and not the profits of big energy corporations.

We discussed the issues at play in the EU energy policies and the role of powerful energy corporations with MEP Marisa Matias and activists Chloé Mikolajczak and Josep Babot.

Our planet, workers and families deserve an energy model that works for them, and not to boost profits of energy corporations! #PowerToThePeople

More and more Europeans struggle to make the ends meet, despite earning a salary. The root of the problem is inequality. Europeans are more unequal today than they were four decades ago.

Paid holidays, sick leave, unemployment, social benefits, healthcare... None of the rights that we enjoy today would exist if it wasn't for workers' activism. Today, more than ever, they cannot be taken for granted.

We discussed the current state of the workers' movement across Europe with Left MEPs Özlem Demirel and Nikolaj Villumsen.

#workersday #taxtherich #mayday

For our first episode in Spanish, Marcella Via interviews MEP Sira Rego.

Faced with the rise of the extreme right that is building a world made for the privileged, where there is no space for the majority, the role of the left is to raise a dissenting voice to put people and the planet before private profit.

It is time to change European institutions from the bottom to build a more equitable and fair union!

The EU’s current border regime is a profitable business for the European companies cashing in on the militarisation of EU migration policy.

Who are the profiteers? Major defence companies which have been among the main beneficiaries of several EU research projects. Companies like Airbus, Thales, Leonardo have been strategically lobbying for the expansion of the defence industry.

As the coronavirus pandemic took hold, a new right-wing government rose to power in Slovenia. The regime was formed by the Slovenian Democratic Party, led by Janez Janša, a politician known for corruption controversies, strange sources of wealth, and attacks on journalists.

Far from the realities of life and daily struggles of Europeans, the European Commission used the State of the Union to portray an out of touch picture of reality, boasting about its “achievements” and lamenting shortcomings as if they’re by accident.

Manon Aubry & Martin Schirdewan discuss & analyse her speech and reflect on the present and future of Europe as we brought the concerns of working people to the #SOTEU debate with the European Commission.

In our third podcast episode we analyse the issues around the development of Covid-19 vaccines over the last year: the lack of transparency, shocking corporate profits, access, intellectual property rights and much more… but ultimately we focus on what we've learned about how people power can deliver change.

🎙The second episode of Left Takes on the EU is out!

In this one we talk about toxic relationships, more specifically about the one the EU has with the Mercosur countries of Latin America and how the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement would feed this circle of poison.

We learn how the EU is not only exporting poisonous substances that it has itself banned in Europe, but it is also bringing them back onto European plates through food imports!

So, why is the EU pushing trade deals that go against its own values? Who is benefiting from it and how are people on both continents resisting?

These are some of the questions we put to German MEP Helmut Scholz and São Paulo University Professor Larissa Mies Bombardi.

To mark May 1st international workers’ day, we look at how Europe’s gig economy workers are taking on big tech and fighting for their rights. We talk to platform workers about conditions in the app economy, get a run-down from French MEP Leïla Chaibi on what the EU could do to tackle the problems faced by riders and drivers, and Margarida Silva from Corporate Europe Observatory talks to us about the power of the big tech lobby in Brussels.

Links:

Leïla Chaibi's proposed directive on platform work in Europe: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Digital Platform Workers

Coursiers en Lutte - a campaign that fights for better working conditions for the couriers of the delivery platforms Deliveroo and Uber Eats: Coursiers en Lutte | Facebook & Coursiers en Lutte (@coursiers_en_lutte) • Instagram

Research on how workers in Europe’s gig economy are resisting labour exploitation with increasing success: Platform workers join forces and blend tactics in fightback for dignity

Research on power of Big Tech in Brussels: Big Tech Lobbying | Corporate Europe Observatory

Corporate Europe Observatory: CEO (@corporateeurope) / Twitter