Eurovision vs. The Champions League
The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
0.0 • 0 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2023
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week is a bonanza for fans of Europe's two favourite competitions: the Champions League football tournament and the Eurovision Song Contest. Both are held up as events that bring Europeans together, but which one does the job better? This week we aim to settle the debate once and for all with a face-off between sports commentator Barbara Barend and Eurovision historian Dean Vuletic. We're also talking about a €300-million EU pension black hole and France's first rap awards.
Do you live in Europe, and do you enjoy this podcast? If so, you can celebrate democracy and fund our show at the same time, by signing up to join the Capital of European Democracy jury. It only takes a few clicks and it's a huge help to us! Sign up here before May 15: https://join.capitalofdemocracy.eu/europeanspod
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT HERE: https://europeanspodcast.com/episodes/eurovision-vs-the-champions-league
The Eurovision vs. Champions League debate was part of a special event for Europe Day hosted by the European Cultural Foundation. You can find out more about this year's celebrations at europeday.eu.
This week's Isolation Inspiration: 'King Charles III's Secret Kingdom' and 'If Found'. You can find the article Katy mentioned on the Flamme awards here in the Guardian, and the ECF's Radio Europe Day playlist here on Spotify.
00:22 Beyoncé in the Brussels bubble
03:49 Bad Week: A €300m pensions black hole
13:25 Good Week: France's first rap awards
18:39 Help us out by joining the European Capital of Democracy Jury!
20:23 The ultimate debate: Eurovision vs The Champions League
37:46 Isolation Inspiration: 'King Charles III's Secret Kingdom' and 'If Found'
40:54 Happy Ending: Aurimas Valujavičius's epic journey
Thanks for listening! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by leaving us a review or giving us five stars on Spotify.
Producer: Katy Lee
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Listeners, Katie is in Amsterdam this week and apparently doesn't have time to see me. |
| 0:28.4 | I think we might be in a podcast crisis. |
| 0:31.2 | To my credit, I am literally in town for a very exciting event, which you're going to hear about in a second. |
| 0:37.4 | Then I'm going to second, then I'm going |
| 0:38.1 | to sleep, then I'm getting back on the train, and going back to Paris so that my students can |
| 0:42.4 | have their exam. There is no time, Dominic. If it makes you feel any better, I'm then coming back |
| 0:48.0 | to Amsterdam later in the week, so we'll see each other then. That's true. I've got a lot to look forward to actually at the end of this week |
| 0:55.1 | because I'm also going to be heading into the Brussels bubble on Sunday |
| 0:58.4 | to see arguably the leader of the free world. |
| 1:03.0 | Oh yeah? |
| 1:03.6 | Beyonce Knowles, who is just opening her Renaissance tour this week in Stockholm |
| 1:08.3 | and then I'm going to see her in Brussels. I really couldn't be more excited. Have Beyonce and the Brussels bubble ever been mentioned before together in the same breath? |
| 1:16.8 | Probably not. That's what this podcast is here for. There you go, the Europeans. The podcast that brings |
| 1:21.6 | you every week the least boring things have happened around the continent. And actually quite a big |
| 1:26.5 | thing happened in our home country of the UK over the weekend. I'm assuming you were glued to television coverage of |
| 1:32.5 | the coronation of our new king. I did watch a bit of the coronation ceremony, actually. |
| 1:38.0 | Oh, well done. And it was a bit boring. I went out to lunch and forgot about it, to be honest. |
| 1:43.2 | Did you? Yeah. Ironically, I was probably less excited than the average and forgot about it, to be honest. Did you? Yeah. |
| 1:44.5 | Ironically, I was probably less excited than the average French person about it. |
| 1:48.7 | It's very strange. |
| 1:49.9 | This country is famously proud of its revolutionary anti-monarchy traditions. |
| 1:54.9 | But French people love talking about the royal family. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.