In this episode, we unveil the EU’s new buzzword and the main talking point at this week’s European Council summit: competitiveness. This week we also bring you another new buzzword in Brussels: Bolshevikism.
Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO’s chief Brussels correspondent, Barbara Moens, to recap the leaders’ summit and their bid to make the bloc’s economy more competitive with China and the United States. We also discuss former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s recently released report on how to overhaul the EU’s single market, and we hear from Letta himself, in conversation with POLITICO’s Giovanna Faggionato.
Later, we’ll have a fascinating discussion with Atlantic Council senior fellow and author Elisabeth Braw about her new book “Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World.”
And we end our episode by explaining how the word “Bolshevikism” came to describe a national conference on conservatism, featuring Nigel Farage and Viktor Orbán, which was upended by local mayors in Brussels.
Further reading:
“It’s time to create a single European market ‘with teeth’ to take on China and India, leaders say”, by Giovanna Faggionato and Bjarke Smith-Meyer
“An inconvenient new truth: Europe’s global projects all require money that no one has,” by Karl Mathiesen, Barbara Moens, Giovanna Faggionato and Giorgio Leali
“The European far right wins a big victory after the Brussels mayors’ own goal”, by Eddy Wax
Politico
