The Europeans Podcast is a fully independent podcast on Europe and the EU, which I’ve found to be a great source to keep up to date on whatever is going on in the continent (in addition to this wonderful community, obviously).

This week they announced a fundraiser for a new mini-series — Who Does it Best — studying various policy fields across European countries, comparing best (and worst) practices in national solutions to common problems across the continent. They plan to start out with podcasts on housing, childcare, and drugs.

Basically, the question is how these policies are solved nationally across the continent. What are the solutions that work well, what are the solutions that work less well, and how can we learn from each other. So I guess it’s something for the policy nerds.

They talk about the mini-series in their latest episode, or in this thread on Mastodon for those who prefer that.

Check it out! :)

I take the time to promote their effort because I like what they’re doing with their podcast. It’s completely independent, being funded almost entirely by their listeners. They’ve been going like this for seven years now, so they are clearly committed to the gig.

They also seem to have their principles in the right place. This is evident when they speak about tricky subjects — I find they tend to have well-researched an nuanced coverage — but also in their actions: I discovered them through their decision to have an active presence on the fediverse (@europeanspodcast), and they have been speaking favourably about Mastodon several times on their podcast since I started listening. So they’re seem to be walking the walk, not only talking the talk, and taking their independence seriously.

Anyone interested in helping can find the fundraiser here. They’re currently at just under €5k.

If you’re not interested, I nevertheless recommend checking out the podcast! It’s usually a great listen.

I hope this doesn’t go under rule 2 of the community - it’s a small independent undertaking that I think is of some interest to anyone interested in building a pan-European information landscape, so I feel like it doesn’t fall under commercial advertising. But if the moderators disagree that’s of course their decision - if so, sorry about that!