In this episode of EU Confidential, we discuss an alleged bribery scheme to hand out Polish visas, which is rocking the country just weeks before general elections.
Host Suzanne Lynch talks to POLITICO's Jan Cienski about the illegal scheme, which was operating from within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw, that allowed visas to be sold to thousands ... Show More
Yesterday
How not to fall: Behind von der Leyen’s fightback and Macron’s meltdown
While the French government collapses in Paris, Ursula von der Leyen stands unshaken in Strasbourg. It’s been a week of political tremors — some performative, others seismic. Just three months after facing her first motion of censure, the European Commission president was hit wit ... Show More
47m 27s
Oct 3
Humiliating Europe: Trump’s culture war and the EU’s response
What do Donald Trump’s culture war, Moldova’s EU ambitions, and Czechia’s upcoming parliamentary election have in common? They all reveal how Europe is being tested — and sometimes humiliated. In this episode of EU Confidential, host Sarah Wheaton speaks with Paweł Zerka, senior ... Show More
37m 33s
Nov 2021
Standoff at the Belarus border
People seeking to migrate through Belarus and Poland are stuck at the border, and neither country wants them. EU officials have called it “weaponization of migrants” by Belarus, but for the people at the border, the geopolitical dispute is about to get worse – winter is coming. W ... Show More
19m 44s
Nov 2021
The refugees caught in a political chess game
A border between Poland and Belarus which has been at the centre of a geopolitical conflict is now quiet. Thousands of asylum-seekers, many of them fleeing conflict zones in the Middle East, were trapped in Belarus hoping to cross over into Poland. On Thursday, Belarussian author ... Show More
18m 5s
Nov 2021
How Belarus Manufactured a Border Crisis
For three decades, President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus, a former Soviet nation in Eastern Europe, ruled with an iron fist. But pressure has mounted on him in the past year and a half. After a contested election in 2020, the European Union enacted sanctions and refused to re ... Show More
27m 52s