Talking Europe hosts Austrian author Robert Menasse, the winner of the 2023 European Union book prize. The award was set up in 2007 to foster a European spirit and promote understanding of the EU from a cultural perspective. The prize has previously been bestowed on such towering figures as Jonathan Coe, Philippe Sands and Tony Judt. Menasse is the only writer to have won the award twice. We discuss his prize-winning novel "The Enlargement", which takes places against the backdrop of the actual enlargement of the European Union. It forms the second novel in his trilogy, after "The Capital" in 2019.

Talking Europe sat down with the prime minister of Bulgaria, Nikolai Denkov, during a crucial EU summit that approved the start of EU accession talks for Ukraine and Moldova – but failed to find an agreement on budget support for Ukraine. We take the political temperature in the summit room with our guest, and discuss some regional and Bulgarian developments as well – notably Sofia's efforts to join the Schengen free travel area, which is currently under negotiation between Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and the European Commission.

Getting the European Green Deal finished is one of the EU Commission's top priorities in the last few months of the current legislative term. At stake is a major transformation of Europe's economies and societies, which could see the continent become climate neutral by 2050. But while we hear a lot about energy strategy, we hear less about another core element of the Green Deal: oceans and fisheries. Our guest is the European Commissioner in charge of Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius. Before joining the EU Commission in 2019, he was Minister of Economy and Innovation in the government of Lithuania, and a member of the Lithuanian parliament. We discuss the contamination of Europe's seas and how all of our habits will need to change, particularly on single-use packaging.

As European leaders tussle over key decisions on Ukraine ahead of a crucial EU summit on December 14-15, Talking Europe hosts Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, Olha Stefanishyna. She tells FRANCE 24 that it is "very important" that a decision to start Ukraine’s EU membership talks be taken, because Ukraine is a "gold standard" when it comes to the reforms that candidate countries need to make. She also acknowledges that this is a "turbulent period" in European politics, which does not always work in Ukraine's favour. We touch on the current state of EU financial support for Ukraine, as well as the shortfall in ammunition deliveries that the EU had pledged.

The war in Ukraine has forced a major rethink in European security, with both Sweden and Finland abandoning their long-standing policy of non-alignment and applying for NATO membership last year. But while Finland was admitted into NATO this April, delays have persisted on Sweden’s entry, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan linking a serious of unrelated issues to Ankara’s ratification of Sweden's accession – the latest of which is a potential sale of US F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. We discuss what Sweden’s entry to NATO would actually mean with Sweden's top diplomat, Foreign Minister Tobias Billström.

Talking Europe hosts Pascal Canfin, the chair of the environment committee at the European Parliament. He is a former French government minister and a former director of the French branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). We take a look at what is coming out of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, and at the state of the EU's green transition. Canfin maintains that 80 percent of the laws planned under the EU's Green Deal should be finished by the end of the current legislative term – something he calls "massive and unprecedented".

A controversial chemical will be allowed in the EU for another 10 years. After member states failed to reach an agreement amongst themselves, the European Commission decided that glyphosate, an agrichemical used in farming, will be re-authorised for a further decade. Glyphosate kills weeds and is the most widely used herbicide in the world. An agency of the World Health Organization has concluded that glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans, but EU and US agencies have not established a link to cancer. There are also big environmental and wildlife dimensions to this debate, which continues in the member states and at the European Parliament. We delve into the issue with two MEPs.

Talking Europe hosts one of the EU Commission's vice-presidents, Margaritis Schinas, who is in charge of overseeing the promotion of the European Way of Life. That includes fighting anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination in various forms. Schinas also coordinates the Commission's work on the Migration and Asylum Pact, which is entering a critical period in negotiations between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament. Schinas tells Armen Georgian he is optimistic that the Pact will be completed before the EU elections next June, and that this will be a key part of the legacy of Ursula von der Leyen's Commission.

The statistics are as damning as they are grim. In the EU, one in three women aged 15 or over has experienced physical or sexual violence – or both. More than half of all women in Europe have been sexually harassed. Only a fifth of women in the EU go to the police when an intimate partner assaults them. Meanwhile, EU member states have failed to agree on how to address the worst crimes against women. Several countries continue to resist calls by Brussels to define non-consensual sex as rape, punishable by a stiff jail sentence. Today, in 2023, there is no common set of rules in the EU to punish rape, to the growing dismay of many. As Europe marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, we discuss the issue with two MEPs.

Europe’s recommendation to grant Georgia candidate status for EU membership is “a very major step” that is goading the country’s political leaders to coalesce around a “new consensus” in favour of a European future, Georgian President Salomé Zourabichvili told FRANCE 24.