Episodes

The Champagne industry is one of Europe’s crown jewels. But like many other sectors, it’s struggling with the weight of Brussels bureaucracy. Champagne enthusiast Henrik Jönsson travels to France to meet the producers and learn how this iconic beverage is made — an unique European craft shaped by generations of hard work, deep expertise, constant innovation, and respect for tradition.

The Brussels-based public health policies aimed at curbing alcohol, nicotine, and fatty foods are not always grounded in science, but often in puritanical notions of what constitutes the “right” and “wrong” way to live.

Europe is currently facing more serious threats to our economic, political, and even military security than it has in a long time. In the previous episode, we established that the European Union needs funding in order to protect itself from external threats. At the same time, Europe is falling behind economically compared to both China and the United States.

After a period of relative peace since the end of the Cold War, Europe has awakened to a new reality with war at our borders. At the same time, large parts of Europe have long relied on NATO – which in practice means the United States – to guarantee our security. But from the U.S., entirely new signals are coming: protecting us seems to no longer be their job.

Are the EU’s Climate Policies Making Us Poorer? And have the EU promised things we can not afford to keep? Henrik Jönsson discusses the media logic behind the climate panic together with Danish author Bjørn Lomborg.

In an increasingly geopolitically unstable world, it is more important than ever for Europe to meet its own basic needs. This not only pertains to military defense, which is a hot topic right now, but also to the fundamental need for food. Meanwhile, European agriculture is facing immense pressure. In recent years, cities across the continent have repeatedly come to a standstill as farmers stage mile-long tractor demonstrations, with messages such as “No farmers, no food.”

Europe’s economy is stagnating. Since the turn of the millennium, real disposable income in the U.S. has grown nearly twice as fast as in the EU – while China’s economy continues to outpace them both. At the same time, the EU is pushing a green transition that could have devastating consequences for both our economy and standard of living. For the European Commission—the EU’s equivalent of a government— climate policy is the top priority. In fact, according to the EU, the green transition is viewed as a matter of life and death.

In 2020, the European Parliament adopted the EU Climate Law. This made it legally binding for each member state to achieve what is called “net zero” by 2050. This means entirely phasing out fossil fuels and energy sources in 25 years, with interim goals as early as 2030. At the same time, the EU’s favourite energy source to replace coal, oil and gas is wind power – an ineffective and unreliable energy source that cannot meet the demands of the electrification of Europe. The dangers of such an energy policy is difficult to overestimate.

Hate and misinformation online is a threat to Europe – this is the view of many European politicians. To combat this the EU is attempting to regulate which opinions can be expressed and which cannot. This attempt to protect the citizens of Europe from harmful content runs the risk of sabotaging freedom of speech – thereby undermining European democracy itself. This is the second part in a series of 10 episodes examining if the EU:s policies on climate change, freedom of speech and business regulation will make Europe thrive – or if centralized control and political opportunism is pushing us all towards The Fall of Europe?

20 years ago China decided to become the superpower of batteries and electrical vehicles. Now the European green deal is phasing out traditional cars – without being able to produce either EV:s or batteries of its own. This is the story of how Europe is betting both its manufacturing industry and its political independence on the green deal. This is the first part in a series of 10 episodes examining if the EU:s policies on climate change, freedom of speech and business regulation will make Europe thrive – or if centralized control and political opportunism is pushing us all towards The Fall of Europe?