Where are the Zohran Mamdanis of Europe?

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 162 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A few weeks back, we asked you to weigh in on a question that’s been on our mind a lot lately: Who are the Zohran Mamdanis of Europe, and when, pray tell, are they going to give our beloved, ailing continent a much-needed shake-up? As it turns out, that’s a complicated question. This week’s guest, Brussels-based journalist Dave Keating, says that the decks are stacked against insurgent outsiders like the New York mayor – yet we need them more than ever. We had a long-overdue chat with Dave about what might be preventing a charismatic, insurgent figure on the left from taking off in the EU, and we also talked about a few of the leaders you wrote in to share with us. (Of course, keep us posted of any changemakers cropping up in your country at hello@europeanspodcast.com.)

We’re also talking about a controversial new law in Germany introducing voluntary military service in the country for men under the age of 45. We recorded this segment a few hours before the news that young men will not have to seek permission for long stints abroad after all; you can read updated reporting here. We also unpack Netflix’s failed legal challenge to EU regulations that led to a flood of funding for European TV and film production. A burning question has now been answered: yes, the US streaming giant really does have to set aside a decent budget for francophone Belgian content.

This week’s Inspiration Station recommendations are the viral videos emerging from Zara Larsson’s tour and Juhani Karila’s book Summer Fishing in Lapland, brought to our attention by listener Monika.

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This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. You can also donate via our website if you prefer. And finally: we'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.

Produced by Katy Lee 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 the Europeans podcast, a show that aims to explain, enlighten, and hopefully entertain on the topic of Europe.
0:57.0	That's a good summary.
0:58.0	Thank you. I thought maybe it sounded a little bit vague,
1:02.0	but maybe that's because Europe itself is a bit of a vague thing.
1:07.0	What is Europe? We've been doing this for a decade and we still don't really know.
1:11.1	We don't, but maybe that's why we're still here. Because it's so impossible to pin down, we're on a journey. We just can't stop having fun each week trying our best to do that. No one's forcing you to say that. No, I don't have a gun to my head, I promise. You are not under duress. Anyway, I'm Dominic Kramer in Amsterdam, and that other voice you hear is a Katie Lee in Paris. Hi, Katie. Hello. Thanks for that little summary of what we do. I think it's good to start this week's show with a bit of an explanation, isn't it? Because there might be some new listeners joining us this week. We went viral last weekend.
1:44.8	We did. We had a very strange Instagram-y Easter weekend where our following on Instagram
1:51.3	doubled, which is pretty insane. Over a really specific post about the extent to which
1:57.1	Polish, Czech and Slovak people can understand each other? How cool is that? Who would have thought that it was that that was going to make us so successful on Instagram? Anyway, it did. So, hi, new listeners who found us via that Instagram post. I'm afraid we're not talking about language this week. What are we going to be talking about? What are you going to be talking about this week, Dominic? Well, in the first segment of the show, Good Week, Bad Week, I am going to be talking about a very controversial
2:21.7	rule in Germany that means that German men should maybe now be informing the military if they
2:28.6	want to leave the country for a considerable amount of time. Oh, oh, sounds drastic. More on that later.
2:34.9	What about you, Katie?
2:36.0	I am going to be talking about a quite juicy little court case in which Netflix is trying
2:42.0	to get out of making quite so many films and TV shows in Belgium.
2:47.2	It is Netflix versus French-speaking Belgians.
2:50.3	What more could you want from a court case?
2:51.6	Wow, sounds intriguing.
2:53.6	I love a bit of entertainment news when the world is falling apart.
2:56.6	It's what we need right now.
2:57.6	And after that, we're going to be moving on to an interview topic that I am particularly excited about
3:03.6	because it's an interview around a question that I've been asking myself for many months.
	...

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