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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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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? ...

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...

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...