Albania's 'flamingo revolution' comes to Brussels

Brussels Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.4 • 205 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2026

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The EU is struggling to land a new deal on consumer protections for airline passengers. After a week of intense negotiations that ultimately failed, transport ministers are meeting today to discuss the current state of play. The main sticking points: rules on compensation for delayed flights and the ease of filing these compensation claims. Also on the show, the far-right National Rally is leading the polls for France’s presidential election next year. But in relation to the EU, would this traditionally euroskeptic party end up following a pragmatic route like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, or a more obstructionist stance in line with former Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán? Nick and Zoya discuss. And finally: The ‘flamingo revolution’ has come to Brussels — both in terms of protesters on the streets and responses from the Commission. We discuss how these protests have turned from anger over real estate mogul Jared Kushner’s plans to build a luxury resort on the habitat of flamingos to something deeper. What rules would you like to see enforced for airline passengers? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Some follow the noise.
0:03.0	Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion
0:07.7	dollar swings.
0:09.0	There's a money side to every story.
0:11.4	Get the money side of the story.
0:13.5	Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com.
0:18.6	Good morning. It's Monday, June 8, and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast.
0:27.9	The vibe in Brussels today is turbulent as the EU struggles to land the plane on new consumer
0:33.3	protections for airline passengers. Sorry, folks, that was...
0:36.3	Uh-oh, Double metaphor alert.
0:38.9	Also on the pod, if Jordan Bardella wins the French presidential election, how would
0:42.9	he approach the EU?
0:44.2	We hear from some insiders.
0:46.3	And the Flamingo Revolution has come to Brussels.
0:48.8	We explain the recent protests in Albania and what the pink bird has to do with us here
0:53.6	in town. I'm Zoro Shafalovic and with me today is Nick Vinica, our chief foreign affairs correspondent. Hey Nick. Hi. We're talking about flying today. What would be like the one thing that you think would make flying tolerable for you? I think you've got to stop charging for the carry-on trolleys. That is a crime and you need to fix it. You've been dinged recently.
1:12.1	I saw you get dinged when we were flying together to the Czech Republic. Yeah, I didn't get the
1:16.8	memo that now the basic fare does not include carry-on. What's going on here? Well, let me tell you
1:23.0	what's going on, Nicholas Vinica, because that is our first topic of the day. So today, the EU's
1:29.8	transport ministers are meeting and they are going to be talking about all sorts of things.
1:33.6	One of the things they're talking about in the any other business item on the agenda is this
1:38.5	bitter struggle that's happening at the moment around the EU's protections for airline
	...

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