A country of dreamers
The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
4.8 • 162 Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2020
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Moldova has just elected a pro-EU president, kicking out a favourite of Vladimir Putin's. This week, we wanted to talk to someone about daily life in a country that has seen a huge exodus to the rest of Europe; don't miss our moving conversation with Aliona Rotaru about what it's been like to stay behind. Also this week: naughty Dutch hackers, German glass ceilings, and Croatian winter warmers.
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and want to help us keep making it, you can chip in a few euros/dollars/pounds a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast.
Check out Are We Europe's beautiful multimedia project featuring Aliona, 'The Drums of Democracy'; read R. Daniel Kelemen's piece in Politico, 'Time to call Hungary and Poland's bluff'; and cosy up with AFP's video on Croatian codpieces.
This week's Isolation Inspiration: 'Blindness' at Amsterdam's Royal Theater Carré, and Colette, a documentary from the Guardian.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Big day today, Dominic. |
| 0:07.0 | Big day today, Dominic. |
| 0:24.2 | Oh, really? |
| 0:24.9 | I've just sent off my application to become a French citizen. |
| 0:27.8 | Whoa, that's big news. |
| 0:30.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:30.5 | Congratulations, Katie. |
| 0:31.5 | How did it feel? |
| 0:32.4 | Exciting. |
| 0:33.1 | Like, more emotional than I thought it would be, actually. |
| 0:35.7 | Probably because I was like bursting with |
| 0:38.2 | pride at actually managing to find every document that they asked for. And I am very satisfied |
| 0:44.9 | with the completeness of my dossier, which as French listeners will know, having a complete dossier is |
| 0:50.0 | like synonymous with being a good French person. So yeah, I hope it's enough. The next big step is to |
| 0:55.9 | start cramming for the interview next year and like memorising all the names of French rivers and |
| 1:00.9 | stuff. You have to remember French rivers. Yeah, it's a bit like the British one in that they can |
| 1:05.6 | ask you sort of random history facts, but also why do you want to be French, etc. |
| 1:13.1 | I would be so bad at that in Britain. |
| 1:14.2 | What rivers specifically? |
| 1:16.1 | I don't know any of the rivers. |
| 1:19.3 | They should take your passport away from you. |
| 1:21.1 | But I hear you also had a big day. |
... |
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