Can Pedro Sánchez unite the global left?

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 162 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we’ve got a little something for everyone: gambling! Kraftwerk! Blast from the recent US political past Tim Walz! It was a Good Week yet again for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the darling of the global left, who threw a party for… the global left. And it was a Bad Week for the legendary German electronic band Kraftwerk, who apparently have been around since 1970(!) and therefore can withstand the occasional bad week. We also caught up with Greek investigative reporter Eurydice Bersi, who was part of a team that uncovered a slew of streamers on places like YouTube and Twitch who’ve been directing their followers to unlicensed gambling sites – and profiting off it.

Eurydice is a reporter with Reporters United, Investigate Europe’s partners in Greece.

This week’s Inspiration Station recommendations are the European Cultural Foundation’s calendar of the smörgåsbord of events coming up in celebration of Europe Day 2026, and the website WhoSampled.com.

UPCOMING BOOK CLUB: Don’t forget to pick up a copy of Vincenzo Latronico’s novella Perfection, which we’ll be discussing with our friends from the European Review of Books right here on 14 May.

Resources for this episode:

“The European rule on whether samples need to be cleared moves to a ‘maybe’ with latest Kraftwerk ruling” – Complete Music Update, 15 April 2026
“The Court of Justice clarifies the scope of the exception for ‘pastiche’ in relation to sampling” – Court of Justice of the European Union, 14 April 2026
“Greek utility completes 2.13 GW solar cluster at former coal mine” – PV Magazine, 7 April 2026
“Social media influencers steer millions of Europeans to unlicensed gambling websites” – Investigate Europe, 24 February 2026
Shady Bets, Investigate Europe’s series on online gambling

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Produced by Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak

Mixing and mastering by Wojciech Oleksiak

Music by Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

The Europeans is proudly produced using Europe’s own Hindenburg.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Euronet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.
0:11.4	But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com forward slash Europeans podcast. Welcome back to the Europeans.
0:48.0	This is Katie Lee in Paris.
0:49.7	That one is Dominic Kramer in Amsterdam.
0:52.1	Say hello.
0:53.5	And this is a podcast about a continent where
0:56.5	we have an election basically every day of the week, but we don't talk about them every single
1:01.6	week because it would make our brains explode. Having said that, can we briefly talk about the
1:06.7	Bulgarian elections before we dive into this week's episodes? Did you follow all the drama over the weekend, Dominic? We can talk about this one. I did follow it. But, like, to be totally honest, Bulgaria's had eight elections in five years. Although this one was a big one, right? It was a big one. A much more decisive result than all of the last elections. Yeah, they've had many, many unstable coalitions. So,
1:27.8	congrats for getting through this eighth election in five years, Bulgarians. And maybe there'll be
1:33.3	a little bit more stability over the next few years. Let's see. But what kind of stability?
1:38.4	It's kind of a bit of a twist in terms of the overall story of Europe. Like Hungary just got rid of Orban, aka Putin's best
1:46.9	friend in Europe. And everyone is like, yay, the tide is turning, the winds of change are here.
1:51.8	And then literally a week later, Bulgaria elects the Russia-friendly Rumen Radev with, yeah,
1:58.3	what looks to be a strong majority. Yeah, I think it's important to note that from what I've read anyway, he's not the same as
2:04.5	Viktor Orban. He's more of a left-wing nationalist. He created this new party progressive Bulgaria
2:09.6	just this year, actually, and they've won the first majority for a single party since
2:15.4	1997 in Bulgaria.
2:17.6	It's astonishing.
2:18.3	Which is astonishing.
2:19.9	But from what I heard, he also ran really on a campaign to fight corruption and create
2:25.8	stable government.
	...

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