Is Palantir unstoppable? | Inside Europe Podcast

0:07 Hello and welcome to Inside Europe, the weekly current affairs podcast and radio

0:12 program from DW Germany's international broadcaster.

0:16 I'm Kate Lok in Bon.

0:18 This week on the show, Palanteer and the NHS concerns about the US

0:23 data company's access to Britain's sensitive health information.

0:28 Former Air Force Chief Rumman Radf wins Bulgaria's elections,

0:32 but are his allegiances to NATO or to Russia?

0:36 And could magic mushrooms be the missing

0:39 ingredient in the fight against depression?

0:43 It was a really life-changing experience for her and that it she can compare it

0:47 in intensity only to uh when she gave

0:50 birth to her children that these were really intense,

0:52 transformative experiences.

1:02 The limits of soft power have been exposed.

1:06 The question is not whether AI weapons will be built.

1:10 It is who will build them and for what purpose.

1:14 If a US Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it.

1:19 And the same goes for software.

1:22 Some cultures have produced vital advances.

1:26 Others remain dysfunctional and regressive.

1:29 We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism.

1:43 No, those were not the ramblings of a fictional super villain,

1:47 but extracts from a 22point manifesto published by the US data and spy techch

1:53 firm Palunteer on X based on a book by the firm's CEO Alex Karp.

1:59 The manifesto has renewed concern about

2:02 the aspirations and motivations of a company

2:05 which is increasingly embedded in state

2:08 infrastructure on both sides of the Atlantic.

2:12 In the UK, for example, Palanteer has secured contracts across a range

2:16 of public sector services including the Ministry of Defense,

2:20 Police, and the National Health Service.

2:23 And it is the NHS contract which has proven the most controversial.

2:29 As Laj Banganger now reports from Manchester, here it comes.

2:36 This is how the White House has

2:37 been promoting US military might in social media.

2:41 Palanteer's AI tools play an increasingly

2:44 important role in target decisionmaking,

2:47 including during recent attacks on Iran.

2:50 This is one of the reasons many here in the UK

2:53 are questioning the ethics of the government's NHS contract with Palanteer.

2:58 So when I was in opposition and I

3:00 was the shadow health and social care secretary,

3:03 I asked lots of questions about

3:04 the contract our predecessors signed at the time.

3:07 Wes Streeting is the health minister in Kestarma's Labor government.

3:11 Here he is talking to the Guardian newspaper

3:14 defending his decision to honor the former Conservative

3:17 government's decision to hire Palunteer to process health

3:21 data with the aim to improve NHS care.

3:25 And I was assured that firstly the data stays here in the UK.

3:31 Secondly, it is owned by us.

3:34 the platform they've given us um to use to improve

3:38 um our systems is is is run by the NHS.

3:42 Palanteer don't see our patient data.

3:46 Now I'm in government.

3:48 I'm in an even better position to continue to assure

3:51 myself and the public that that remains the case.

3:55 We're just here at the Wittington Hospital to go and tell the board

3:59 uh who are having a meeting that we don't want Palanteer and the NHS.

4:02 But the health secretary's asurances are

4:04 not enough for campaigners like Duncan McCann.

4:07 He's the tech and data lead at the legal campaign group The Good Law Project.

4:13 Sadly, Palante's track record is a track

4:15 record of you know really poor partnerships

4:18 be it with Donald Trump uh you know facilitating ICE and deportations and you

4:24 know that's indeed where we've seen them

4:26 actually pull data from medical records and other

4:28 places to help ICE you know target

4:31 and refine their uh their immigration searches.

4:35 Um, we know that this is a company that has been

4:39 uh selling its services to the Netanyahu uh government as well

4:43 in Israel and has at some degree been involved in what

4:48 Israel is doing uh in the occupied territories uh and Gaza.

4:53 Uh right, we are going to bring you

4:54 the latest uh government figures on COVID 19 cases.

4:59 is the UK has reported a record.

5:01 The NHS contract with Palanteer stems from 2020 when the US

5:06 company was hired to help the British government fight the COVID pandemic.

5:10 In 2023, Palanteer was awarded an NHS contract worth

5:15 €380 million over 7 years with a much broader scope.

5:20 Duncan McCann from the Good Law Project says patients and doctors have been

5:24 telling them that Palunteer's expanded access

5:27 is impacting people's trust in the NHS.

5:31 Trust is absolutely vital between patients and our health system.

5:37 A survey has been done here in the UK

5:39 that if Palanteer were again to be fully integrated

5:42 into our health system that almost 50% of people

5:46 might choose to opt out of sharing their data.

5:49 This would not stop Palanteer getting access to that data.

5:52 What it would stop is that data being

5:54 available to researchers being able to find new drugs.

5:58 Opting out doesn't stop GPS and hospitals

6:01 to hold patient data which is crucial for care.

6:04 And that means this data will still

6:06 be fed through Palanteer's systems for analysis.

6:10 There are other objections to Palanteer

6:13 in the NHS beyond the ethical and moral ones.

6:16 Several regional NHS organizations say

6:19 they already have well functioning systems

6:22 that colleate data and allow them to be as efficient as possible,

6:26 including my own local Greater Manchester NHS.

6:29 They did not, however, agree to an interview.

6:35 So I called Rory Salon Jones, former BBC technology correspondent and now

6:40 an active commentator on technology and health.

6:43 He has been speaking to several sources in the NHS

6:46 making that same argument about Palanteer's tools for the health service.

6:51 The first person who got in touch came

6:52 to the conclusion that it's actually not very good.

6:56 The other big criticism that there was mission creep

6:59 happening that it had been brought in to do one

7:02 thing and then was being uh foisted on them

7:05 in all sorts of other areas um at quite some expense

7:09 as well that in terms of retraining staff who

7:13 had got used to a whole bunch of programs they

7:15 felt worked and were being uh told to use uh

7:19 Palanteer programs that they thought were not up to much.

7:23 Palanteer has not answered a request for an interview for this report.

7:27 The current Labor government maintains that data

7:29 and citizens rights will remain protected.

7:32 Yet, other political parties take a different stance.

7:36 Nigel Faraj's right-wing reform party is currently polling

7:39 top ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives,

7:42 and it has plans to share data between various government agencies,

7:46 including the NHS, to identify illegal migrants and deport them.

7:51 Lash Banger, DW Manchester.

7:55 We are in the process of collecting ideas

7:58 for an up and cominging tech and data special.

8:02 So, do you have any European stories that you'd like to suggest we cover?

8:06 If so, please do drop us a line inside Europedw.com.

8:12 Now to Bulgaria, where after years of political instability,

8:18 the country's eighth general election in 5 years has

8:22 finally delivered a clear and stable mandate to govern,

8:26 albeit to a party which has only existed for 3 weeks.

8:30 The party progressive Bulgaria is the vehicle of the former

8:34 president Rumman Radf with a 135 seat majority.

8:39 The result was clear, but what does it actually mean?

8:44 That's the question that I put to Alexander Dev,

8:47 head of DW Europe's Bulgarian department.

8:51 It's a historical event, also very important for Europe,

8:55 especially after Victor Urban lost the elections in Hungary.

9:00 Uh the question was, will there be a new urban coming from Bulgaria?

9:06 And unfortunately I cannot give a simple answer

9:09 to that with yes or no because we still don't know

9:12 how the next government will look and what Roman

9:15 radiff actually wants to achieve in the coming four years.

9:20 Okay.

9:21 So it sounds as though the question of what this election victory means

9:26 hangs very much together with the question of who Roman Radf is himself.

9:31 You know who who is this man who's managed to pull off this amazing

9:35 political feat with a party that a month ago it didn't even exist.

9:39 Right.

9:39 This is extraordinary.

9:41 Exactly.

9:41 It was formed only in a couple of weeks in order to run.

9:44 So he resigned from the presidential palace in January

9:48 and he said it's time to save Bulgaria to fight corruption.

9:52 So I'm going to take part in the next elections.

9:55 So who is he?

9:57 This is interesting.

9:58 First of all, he's a pilot.

10:00 uh he's a pilot who started actually flying uh in communist times.

10:05 Then after the fall of the Berlin war in 1989

10:08 and the changes in Bulgaria as well, he went abroad.

10:11 He went to the US where he continued his education.

10:16 So he's a person who is very skillful in what he does according to people

10:22 who have worked with him because he was

10:24 also the head of the Bulgarian Air Force.

10:27 and then in 2016 he ran for president.

10:31 Uh at that time he was chosen

10:33 by the Bulgarian Socialist Party as their candidate.

10:37 Bulgarian Socialist Party is actually the party

10:40 that succeeded the Bulgarian Communist Party from communist times.

10:45 So from then until now we have one question which is is Romanov

10:51 actually a NATO general or is he someone who is allied to Russia?

10:56 Because uh after this election in 2016,

10:59 we heard from people who are very influential in Moscow from crisis

11:04 connected to the regime of Putin that they support this candidate.

11:08 So after the war in Ukraine began and Roman

11:13 Riff as president started criticizing Ukraine and the European Union.

11:20 uh this question became more and more important and now it was something

11:25 that was mentioned very often in the campaign

11:28 but obviously didn't stopped him from winning

11:32 and also observers in Brussels will presumably have

11:36 been reassured by his prospective choice of coalition partner.

11:41 Yeah, this is important in order to make

11:44 constitutional changes or to have this uh qualified majority

11:49 which he needs to change heads of some institutions

11:53 uh heads of uh parts of the judiciary etc.

11:56 He needs to form some kind of a coalition ad hoc coalition because he has

12:01 the majority otherwise and the first party that he

12:05 mentioned is actually the pro- European liberal party.

12:09 This is we continue the change democratic

12:11 Bulgaria as someone who he can work with.

12:14 So in that sense this is a positive

12:16 signal towards Brussels and the European Union.

12:19 Actually in his first reactions during the election he

12:23 talked to foreign media and he said briefly that Bulgaria

12:27 wants to be part of the European Union and NATO

12:30 but that the European Union and NATO need critical voices.

12:34 And he also criticized European uh the European Union for trying

12:38 to act like some kind of a moral high ground.

12:43 Okay.

12:43 Okay.

12:43 So I mean you know this question

12:45 of of the positioning between the polls of the EU

12:47 and and Russia is obviously you know really important

12:50 for people looking at this through a Brussels lens.

12:53 But but but the campaign itself it was

12:57 very much fought on domestic issues wasn't it?

13:00 particularly an anti-corruption stance.

13:04 Yeah, I would say that they we had

13:06 three keywords during the campaign which were inflation,

13:09 corruption and Victor urban.

13:11 We already discussed the Victor urban part.

13:13 Let's talk about the other two because these are the ones

13:15 that actually led to this landslide victory of Roman Radv.

13:20 Corruption is the most important word here because

13:23 I will go back to the protest in December.

13:25 So they were against the budget and against raising taxes.

13:28 But when we talked to people on the street that were protesting,

13:33 they told us we don't want them to raise taxes because if they raise taxes,

13:38 they will have more money to steal.

13:40 And by they, they mean the political class.

13:42 Alex, I'm sort of I'm conscious that, you know,

13:44 corruption, it can feel quite abstract.

13:47 And I'm wondering if you could give me a sense

13:50 of how corruption affects everyday life uh in Bulgaria.

13:55 you know, if I were living in Bulgaria, where would I become aware of it?

13:59 Yes, you would become aware of it very very soon after you arrive, I would say,

14:04 because uh let's give an example and uh

14:07 most of our listeners from Bulgaria will totally agree.

14:10 Uh here it's a common practice if a police car stops you because you're

14:17 speeding or something like that, just to give them 20 out of your pocket.

14:21 Same goes for the hospitals.

14:23 It's also common practice to give something to the doctors

14:27 and the nurses in the hospitals in order to get better treatment.

14:30 So this is on the ground level.

14:32 This is something that almost every Bulgarian has experienced.

14:35 Then when it comes to the higher levels,

14:38 I will give you a breaking news that we have now in Bulgaria.

14:43 The chief prosecutor of Bulgaria resigned after the elections.

14:47 But he resigned after the party that won

14:50 actually Roman rather's party told him to do so.

14:53 So when it comes to this separation of power and independence

14:57 of the judiciary you obviously see signs that it's missing.

15:02 Then uh let's talk about the elections as well.

15:05 So according to the interim ministry of interior more than 1 million200,000

15:12 euro were confiscated that were meant to be used for buying votes.

15:18 They were confiscated together with lists

15:20 of voters with their IDs information about them.

15:24 So this money were obviously meant to be given

15:27 to a lot of people in order to influence the election outcome.

15:31 So, how easy is this going to be to unpick?

15:35 And in my mind, I have your hospital example

15:38 which was so powerful because I'm thinking, well, hang on.

15:40 This it seems like an almost impossible not to unpick.

15:44 I think that we can talk for days

15:46 trying to unravel and to explain the whole thing.

15:48 But yeah, let's say like two sentences.

15:51 First about the taxes.

15:52 This is a problem because according to independent posters and some researchers,

15:57 around 20% of the salaries in Bulgaria aren't

16:01 actually declared the way that they should be.

16:04 This means people getting money under the table and not paying taxes.

16:09 So this uh landslide win that progressive Bulgarian and Truman Radic have

16:17 now actually is a chance for them to start this structural change.

16:22 The question is whether they will be able to do

16:25 it because otherwise by changing just some people that are

16:29 in charge the outcome will be the same because this is

16:33 a structural thing that's been going on for years and years.

16:37 I love, Alex, that throughout this conversation,

16:40 I've heard the laughter in your voice.

16:42 Is that just your sort of coping

16:44 mechanism or is there like a particular Bulgarian

16:46 humor that's developed in in in the midst

16:49 of all this sort of stagnation and frustration?

16:52 You still see successful stuff coming out from Bulgaria,

16:56 also startups and stuff like that.

16:58 And I think that the recipe for this is

17:00 uh to continue and of course to laugh a bit

17:04 because it's such an absurd situation sometimes that this is

17:09 the only thing that you have left as an option.

17:13 Alexander DV, thank you so much for talking to me.

17:16 Thank you very much.

17:18 And we will be linking to Alexander

17:20 Detov's election reporting in the show notes.

17:23 I'm Kate Leokinbon.

17:25 You're listening to Inside Europe.

17:53 Could magic mushrooms be the missing ingredient in mental health treatment?

18:02 Earlier this year, the Czech Republic, Czecha,

18:06 became the third country in Europe to allow psilocybin,

18:10 the active compound in magic mushrooms,

18:12 to be used for people suffering from severe depression.

18:17 The therapy carried out under strict medical supervision is

18:21 being used for those who don't respond to anti-depressants.

18:24 And as Rob Cameron reports from Prague,

18:28 its standout quality is the speed with which it can alleviate symptoms.

18:35 So um by background I'm a doctor.

18:37 Uh Dr.

18:38 Tomas Palenichi sits me down on a park bench and tells me about magic mushrooms.

18:45 Prague is experiencing its first real day of spring

18:48 and it's hard not to feel optimistic about life,

18:52 the universe, everything.

18:54 Work on my clinical specialization.

18:56 Tomas is a clinical psychiatrist at the National Institute

18:59 for Mental Health in Kletani just north of Prague.

19:03 He's also head of the institute's psychedelic research center.

19:08 Since January, licensed psychiatrists are legally

19:12 allowed to administer so-called medical psilocybin,

19:15 the psychedelic chemical in magic mushrooms,

19:18 to those suffering from major depression, not just in clinical trials,

19:24 but in regular treatment under strict conditions for those who warrant it.

19:29 Today, uh we are noticing something what we

19:32 can call psychedelic renaissance in science and clinics.

19:36 Psychedelics are substances like psilocybin

19:39 from uh psychedelic mushrooms, uh LSD,

19:42 dimethylryptamin from iawasa and quite a number of other compounds.

19:47 And in 50s uh there was increasing evidence about uh

19:51 their possible use in the context of treatment in psychiatry.

19:54 But then they were banned in the' 70s and for a long time nothing was done.

20:00 there was no significant progress in researching

20:03 these compounds because they became one substances.

20:06 And over the last 20 years,

20:08 uh there's increasing uh new evidence

20:10 that these compounds certainly might be useful uh

20:14 as a treatment in a number of psychiatric

20:17 disorders uh namely uh in treating depression,

20:21 anxiety and also addiction.

20:24 For now, psilocybin can be prescribed for those in paliotative

20:28 care and suffering what's called severe endof life anxiety.

20:33 Those suffering from treatment resistant depression, i.e.

20:36 major depression that doesn't respond to regular

20:39 anti-depressants as well as some other life-threatening conditions.

20:44 It's not suitable for all psychiatric

20:46 conditions and especially not suitable for psychosis.

20:50 The potential of psilocybin lies in its fast acting nature.

20:54 Where someone might have been dogged by crushing

20:57 depression for years with no respite from anti-depressants,

21:01 psilocybin has the potential to bring about a rapid

21:04 and profound switch in mood after a single session.

21:09 Tomas's colleague at the center, Dr.

21:11 Vivian Winkler, has seen this with her own eyes.

21:15 Uh she was a lady with treatment resistant depression.

21:18 you've been depressed for years and the last uh the last month 6

21:22 months she's been uh she hasn't been able to to go to work.

21:25 She's been at home.

21:26 She had the session with us and the session went really beautifully.

21:29 She had lots of emotional catharsis moments.

21:32 She was crying a lot,

21:33 but it was mixed tears with um of sadness and also gratitude.

21:38 And um yeah, she said it was a really uh she was saying

21:41 afterwards um that it was a really life-changing experience for her and that she

21:46 can compare it in intensity only to uh when she gave birth to her children

21:50 that these were really in intense

21:53 transformative experiences in a very bodily way.

21:56 And then the in the days after she she was feeling really

21:59 great and it's I mean it's 2 weeks because she's a really recent

22:02 patient but um we had a visit with her yesterday uh a few

22:06 days ago and uh and and she was still doing great and saying

22:09 that she's been uh talking to her family you know really meeting uh

22:14 meeting with her husband talking on the phone to her kids and she

22:17 said they've been crying together telling each other that they how much they

22:21 care for each other and she's been initiating this As Tom said earlier,

22:28 checks were trailblazers in the use of psychedelics

22:32 as far back as the 1950s and60s.

22:35 This now legendary footage is of an experiment

22:39 in which communist Czechoslovak army officers

22:42 were dozed with LSD and then try and fail rather hilariously to follow orders.

22:54 In fact, one of the founding fathers of the discipline is Dr.

22:58 Stanislav Gr who's still lecturing at the age of 94 in the United States.

23:04 So, it seems things have come full circle.

23:07 Both Tomas and Vivian, however,

23:09 are keen to stress that psilocybin is not a wonder drug.

23:13 It seems to have a strongly positive effect in about a third of patients,

23:17 some effect in another third, and no effect at all in the rest.

23:22 Magic mushrooms are still technically illegal for recreational use.

23:27 And both psychiatrists said experimenting with them can be extremely dangerous,

23:32 especially for vulnerable people.

23:34 But there's still a sense of optimism that they seem to contain

23:37 something that can be of enormous help to sufferers of depression.

23:42 For DW, this is Rob Cameron in Prague.

23:46 A report ending on an optimistic note.

23:49 These days I know when to quit whilst we're ahead.

23:51 This is Inside Europe.

23:52 I'm Kate Lok in Bon.

24:00 This is a moment.

24:04 One I have wanted for a long time.

24:10 one that makes it all worthwhile.

24:13 Now I'm not sure how to feel and so we holding

24:18 hands silent they couldn't touch his fires burn into the night.

24:28 Can you feel it?

24:31 Can you feel Welcome back to Inside Europe,

24:57 the weekly current affairs podcast and radio

25:00 program from DW Germany's international broadcaster.

25:04 I'm Kate Lok in Bon.

25:06 And before we go any further,

25:08 I want to begin with a conversation which I

25:11 have been waiting to share with you for ages now.

25:14 Only for some reason or another it keeps getting delayed.

25:17 which is appropriate because the subject of the conversation

25:21 is delayand the DW podcast exploring that most pressing

25:26 of contemporary German questions almost or very loosely translated why

25:33 is everything a little bit me from trains that don't

25:36 run on time to the humbling of Germany's once

25:39 mighty car industry my favorite DW investigative duo business journalists

25:45 Andreas Becka and Nicholas Martin are on the case exploring

25:50 the challenges that are causing Europe's largest economy to falter.

25:55 Here's Andreas with the elevator pitch.

25:58 We were trying to look at everything that's going wrong in Germany.

26:04 We compared it to the positive cliches many people

26:09 still have in their minds when they think of Germany.

26:11 They think of efficiency.

26:12 They think of punctuality.

26:14 They think of engineering.

26:17 They think of management and sticking to plans.

26:21 And when we looked around in this country, all this is not really happening.

26:26 Yeah.

26:26 Made in Germany.

26:27 I mean like anecdotally, so my my husband, you know, 20 years ago,

26:31 young Frenchman with a very sick accident damages

26:33 his knee in uh a rugby accident has an operation and um on his X-ray the doctor

26:41 writes made in Germany to identify the screws

26:45 and everything and like you know that there's

26:48 like I mean it's a joke but there's also

26:49 a real pride you know it's all right you've

26:51 been fixed in Germany you're going to be fine.

26:53 I don't think anyone would do that anymore.

26:55 Well, I think made in Germany still is a symbol for a good product.

27:01 But what we find out is that the fame of Germany slowly eroding.

27:06 That what we saw and that was also the idea of the podcast.

27:10 We saw in comments, we saw on mails and so on so forth.

27:14 People asking, "Hey Germany, you're supposed to be so punctual.

27:18 You're supposed to be so efficient,

27:20 but what's going on right now?" But I'm still pretty sure

27:23 that we're benefiting from this fame from the past even today.

27:28 That's interesting.

27:28 And we've kind of like so far we've been sort of talking about,

27:31 you know, the outside lens, right?

27:33 But I get the feeling that what's really

27:34 motivating you guys is the internal lens, right?

27:37 It's that classic sort of German introspection, right?

27:40 It's this sort of sense of general malaise that there is in the country

27:43 which has real life political consequences

27:46 as well because if people start to lose

27:48 faith in the system then they either don't vote or they vote you

27:52 know explicitly for a party that is going to go against the system RFD.

27:57 So this is an economic problem.

27:59 It's a psychological problem but it's also a real political problem

28:03 and and you guys are getting to the crux of it.

28:05 Well, that was part of the journey

28:08 actually because whenever you listen to populist parties,

28:11 what they're basically promising is they take you

28:15 back into time to when the country was better.

28:19 Trump is a perfect example, make America great again.

28:23 So there was always this idea that it used

28:25 to be better and this is certainly true in Germany.

28:28 The Deutschean used to be punctual.

28:31 The German car makers used to be super successful.

28:34 Government efficiency used to be stellar.

28:37 So there's always this promise.

28:39 It used to be better then something happened and now

28:42 we are in a mess and how can we fix it?

28:45 And this was running through all the episodes

28:48 of delay land this kind of conflict.

28:51 How defeatist you can be actually.

28:53 Is it just like looking at things and saying, "God,

28:56 nothing's working anymore." Or is there actually a reason why things degraded?

29:02 Or is there actually maybe a way out of it?

29:05 Tell me about the German relationship with cars and what that tells us

29:11 about this particular aspect of the psychology

29:15 that you've been unpacking for me.

29:17 We grew up with strong motors.

29:19 We grew up with the idea of the autoban.

29:22 ride as fast as you want and the sound of a combustion engine, you know,

29:28 and I think the slow adaption to electric vehicles shows that we

29:33 are really hesitant when it comes to change in a way.

29:37 So, we love the strong cars, the sound, and going fast.

29:42 So, Nico, I would I would take you much more seriously right now

29:45 if I hadn't listened to the podcast and been able to somehow visualize

29:49 the color of your face as you got out of like a top speed

29:54 car that had been taking you around the the Nuremberg Ring um race track.

29:59 We're doing 190 through the corner.

30:02 This is why the noise is such an important track for lap

30:06 records because if the car can do a good lap time here,

30:10 this means all the components work, suspension, tires,

30:13 engine, chassis, then of course also the driver itself.

30:17 It's better than roller coaster, I think.

30:19 Oh yes, definitely.

30:21 The car can survive up here like this means you've done something good.

30:26 So, do all the German car makers test here too?

30:29 Yeah, everyone.

30:29 mostly the Germans because of course for them accessible.

30:32 A lot of them have like their testing centers like really next door.

30:37 So it allows them to be here almost every

30:39 day to try out their cars components and everything.

30:42 And well that's it.

30:44 We've done a lab.

30:45 Wow.

30:46 Well, thank you.

30:47 Yeah.

30:47 You're welcome.

30:49 You are not a petrol head.

30:50 Don't don't don't pull this on me.

30:52 Yeah.

30:53 No, but to make the long story short, I mean,

30:56 we are we don't want this change going electric.

30:59 And that's also what happened to the companies at the end.

31:02 I mean, they were like they didn't see the changes really coming.

31:08 And that's why China actually took over with their electric vehicles.

31:13 That's how the German car manufacturers somehow got spoiled

31:20 by their own success because money was coming in.

31:23 Now it hits them suddenly pretty hard because they weren't seeing the future.

31:28 They weren't willing to adapt to the change that was coming.

31:31 And this legacy is a super important point.

31:33 I think if you have success in whichever

31:36 area and then the whole thing shifts because

31:39 of technology or whatever if you're one

31:43 of the successful ones running a profitable business in combustion

31:48 engines then you are slower to change and I think this comes in various shapes

31:55 and colors when it comes to German parts

31:58 of industry because this strong legacy was making Sure,

32:03 hundreds of thousands of people were employed.

32:06 They were making crazy money by selling the cars to places like China.

32:10 And why would they maybe shift funds for development and research very

32:16 early which might have been necessary

32:18 if they still had this profitable business?

32:21 They might have undersestimated the change

32:23 and the willingness to change in other countries.

32:26 There is another thing coming into play is a mentality thing as well.

32:30 We are always searching for 100% solution.

32:33 Everything has to be perfect.

32:34 Has to be tested and tested all over again.

32:36 That's a good thing.

32:37 And coming back to the made of Germany that that is

32:40 what made made of Germany so popular because the products were great.

32:45 But the mentality worldwide has shifted.

32:48 the speed of new products is has increased

32:51 and this whole more agile thinking okay let's do

32:55 something and it's 80% let's put it out

32:57 and improve is not really in the German engineer mindset

33:02 so you you you've introduced cliches here so I

33:05 I feel comfortable to um to pick up there um

33:09 you've talked about the German engineering mindset Nico you

33:13 also deal with that other cliche the German bureaucratic mindset.

33:20 There's a hilarious uh episode called What the Facts?

33:23 Because faxes still exist in Germany.

33:26 So, how do you think that those two things have sort of, you know,

33:30 interconnected and coincided and why has that become

33:33 a a sort of a a not particularly helpful cocktail?

33:38 When it comes to the public administration,

33:41 I think the Germans pride themselves of being

33:46 basically functional and reliable and not corrupt.

33:51 And you can prove anything by having a folder with paper inside.

33:56 And for a long time this might have worked well

34:00 but the whole shift to digital you know build an app

34:04 for example to make government services accessible if you then have

34:09 this feeling oh it's got to be 100% certain it got

34:11 to be 100% foolproof it got to be 100% whatever

34:15 then usually you come out with nothing when we heard

34:18 that in Denmark everything is digital and AI is now being

34:22 introduced into the public private services I mean we were making jokes

34:26 that at the end of the day we in Germany are

34:29 the happy people because AI is not taking completely over it

34:33 because we have our stuff as paperwork somewhere stored so we

34:38 are safe you know can can I just jump in here because

34:42 you've just covered two things that I wanted to say one

34:44 is the other German stereotype sorry guys but it is about

34:48 Germans not having much sense of humor I find you

34:52 as a duo and I found this podcast you know very very funny.

34:55 Um, but the the other thing was, you know,

34:57 this the serious point that there are um for really

35:00 good historical reasons firewalls built in to the German system.

35:07 So, you know, that the caution about um a centralized control

35:11 over citizens digital data has very very obvious historical reasons, right?

35:18 And also the fact that a lot of things are federalized.

35:22 So, there's that.

35:23 Um and then on the industry side, you know,

35:26 you have works councils, which you don't have in a lot of countries.

35:29 Um you have very very strong and active unions.

35:32 And so you have a lot of worker protections, job protections,

35:36 which are from a workers perspective an extremely good thing.

35:40 for for us for us that was really part of the pleasure of working on delay land

35:44 because you learn a lot about why the country

35:47 is like it is and why it's struggling to deal with you know some issues and uh

35:54 so it's it's almost like a like a history

35:56 lesson in some ways while at the same time

36:00 traveling around and looking if it's really that decrepit.

36:04 You know, it's so easy to fall into that, let's say,

36:08 populist trap that we see all over the world,

36:10 like cut bureaucracy, uh, be just agile, you know,

36:15 this somehow, um, how do you say Motoga?

36:19 Oh, yeah.

36:19 Chainsaws.

36:20 Yeah.

36:21 Yeah.

36:21 You know, these chainsaws images from MLE, Elon Musk, and so on so forth.

36:27 So we really tried to also show

36:30 the historical reasons and show the the gray areas

36:36 and not just make it a a simple answer to all these problems we are facing.

36:41 No easy answers but lots of fun.

36:44 Delayand is out now wherever you get your podcasts.

36:47 Do take a listen and subscribe.

36:49 It's highly recommended.

36:50 And when you do, if you could leave a little message saying,

36:55 "Inside Europe sent me here," then you may or may not be helping me

36:59 to win a little bet that I have going with Nicholas Martin and Andreas Becker.

37:02 In which purely theoretical case, I would be extremely grateful.

37:07 When you think of Germany,

37:08 you think of extreme punctuality, perfect planning, high-tech, and efficiency.

37:14 Well, think again.

37:16 Welcome to Delay Land, a podcast about a country that needs your help.

37:22 Available wherever you get your podcasts.

37:26 This week, migrants in Spain began applying to legalize their status

37:31 after the government passed an amnesty measure that offers immigrants without

37:35 legal status a one-year renewable residence permit if they have spent

37:40 5 months living in the country and have a clean criminal record.

37:45 It's a radical move and one that once again sets

37:48 Spain on a very different course to its European neighbors.

37:52 So what's been going on in Spain to make such daring policies possible?

37:59 Well, one answer is grassroots organizing.

38:03 Reporter Zoe Bass has been taking a closer look

38:07 and concluded that women are a major part of the story.

38:21 This protest song calls for regularization of migrant worker rights.

38:26 Now, organizations like these represent hundreds

38:30 of thousands of mostly female migrants

38:33 who work as caregivers and domestic helpers here in Spain without legal status.

38:40 I spoke with founder and spokesperson Edith Espinola,

38:44 who played a central role in campaigning for the legalization

38:48 of an estimated 700,000 undocumented migrant workers by royal decree.

38:57 More than 60% of the people who are going to be regularized are

39:01 women and within the structure of regularization now 80% of us are women.

39:07 Yes, Spain has made rapid advances in gender rights

39:11 since emerging from dictatorship just 50 years ago.

39:16 Remember from Malaga recalls how much has changed.

39:20 To me, being a woman in Spain now is a gratitude that at this point

39:27 we have a lot more rights and not so long ago we were with a dictatorship.

39:35 As woman, I was not able to have a manga account.

39:39 I needed to have a male figure doing the decisions for me.

39:44 I feel like we need to keep fighting in the sense

39:46 of this is not something that we take for granted.

39:50 In 2004, Spain passed one

39:53 of the world's first comprehensive gender-based violence laws,

39:58 and today it ranks fourth in Europe on the gender equality index.

40:03 Spain has long struggled with its so-called machismo culture,

40:08 but in recent years,

40:10 it has become something of a progressive trailblazer in Europe.

40:14 The 2022 only yes means yes law on sexual consent

40:20 along with a raft of supporting measures including dedicated helplines,

40:25 specialized courts and police units for violence

40:28 against women marked yet another important step forward.

40:33 Spain also leads on sexual and reproductive rights.

40:37 In 2021, paternity leave was extended to 16 fully paid weeks,

40:43 the same length of time as maternity leave.

40:46 I spoke with Craig Scott, teacher at an international school in Marbaya,

40:50 who had two very different experiences

40:53 of paternity leave between Spain and the UK.

40:56 Uh yeah, I mean 2023, Leo, my third son, was born.

41:00 It was a month before the end of the school

41:02 year and um I immediately took the compulsory fiveweek paternity leave.

41:07 Uh it was it was crucial obviously for supporting my wife

41:10 and having that great kind of bonding experience with with a newborn.

41:14 In stark contrast to that the the middle child won in the UK.

41:18 I was told from my school at the time that I would have 2

41:20 weeks paternity leave and I was actually pressured um to only take half of that.

41:25 Spain also legalized abortion for 16 and 17 year olds without parental consent

41:31 in 2023 and is the first country in Europe to offer paid menstrual leave.

41:37 Yet the country continues to struggle with economic inequality.

41:42 I attended a women's day event in Malaga dedicated to female tech entrepreneurs.

41:48 Luchana Patino who will shortly launch a tech incubator for women in Malaga

41:54 explains that women here in Spain are still struggling to lead in business.

41:59 There's many uh public organisms that have lines of financing for projects

42:04 for women and only the 20% of those funds are used.

42:08 I think we are scared of getting into technology.

42:13 only the 10% of female leaders are C CEOs.

42:18 Now, many of the young women I spoke

42:19 with at the event were positive about the future.

42:22 But almost a decade since the MeToo movement,

42:26 Spain's youth identify as less feminist than their older counterparts.

42:32 Policy analyst at the European Policy Center, Kavia Carbonel, explains why.

42:38 With young men, they're all massively moving to the right.

42:41 With young women, what we have is more polarization.

42:43 So most are going to the left,

42:45 but there's a a very significant minority that is going to the right.

42:49 So in the end, the the general trend

42:51 of young people is moving towards the right.

42:53 Kavia puts this down largely to economics.

42:56 The country is doing very well,

42:57 but the situation of young people in Spain is really, really bad.

43:01 And this is shared across Europe, but it's particularly bad in Spain.

43:05 We have high unemployment rates for young people.

43:07 We have a lot of difficulties to access housing.

43:10 And so for young people, the situation is very,

43:12 very different than what the macroeconomic data tells us.

43:16 Is Spain's newly won position as feminist trailblazer here to stay?

43:21 In large part, that will depend upon the ability of socially progressive

43:26 politicians to address concerns that cut

43:29 across both generational and gender lines.

43:33 as far-right narratives gain ground here

43:36 in the run-up to next year's national elections.

43:40 This is Zoe Bass for DW in Malaga.

43:44 Just a quick reminder that if you want to reach out to me and the team,

43:47 then you can email inside Europedw.com.

43:50 We do also read and appreciate your comments on the various social

43:53 media platforms and are of course always grateful for your likes and reviews.

43:58 I'm Kate Lok in Germany.

44:00 You're listening to Inside Europe.

44:32 Late last month, the UN passed a groundbreaking

44:35 resolution urging reparations for slavery's historical wrongs.

44:40 This is the latest and most dramatic moment

44:42 in an ongoing and global process of historical reckoning,

44:47 which requires former colonizers to come to terms

44:50 with the darker sides of their country's pasts.

44:53 Six years ago, for example, Berlin became one of a handful of European

44:58 cities reassessing its relationship to European colonialism.

45:03 The local administration funded efforts to decolonize

45:06 the city landscape in partnership with AfroGerman organizations.

45:11 Now, some Berliners are saying that the work is just the first step,

45:16 but as political winds shift in Germany,

45:19 the political will to do more may be dissipating.

45:23 Anelise Finny brings us this story.

45:27 It's a gray afternoon and Tahir Dela and I

45:30 are sitting on a bench in northwest Berlin.

45:34 We are here in the African quarter, although the name is very misleading.

45:37 Actually, we should be talking about the colonial quarter.

45:41 Dela works for the initiative of black people in Germany.

45:45 The reason for the naming is that Hagenbeck, the inventor of the German zoo,

45:49 planned to establish a huge open air zoo here,

45:52 including, and now it's getting interesting, a permanent human zoo.

45:57 show.

45:58 These human zoos were ostensibly about getting to know other cultures,

46:02 but often used racist words and tropes to describe the people on display.

46:07 They included people from Germany's colonies in parts of Africa,

46:11 Asia, and what is today Oceanania.

46:14 At the time, in the early 1900s,

46:17 Germany controlled one of the largest European colonial empires.

46:21 When local people in Germany's colonies resisted foreign control,

46:25 Germany at times responded with brutal violence.

46:29 Starting in 1904, German colonial forces killed tens of thousands of people

46:35 from the Nama Ova Herrerero and other

46:37 indigenous communities in what is today Namibia.

46:41 From the bench where we're seated,

46:43 Dela points out a new street sign which reads Ana Mongunda Ali.

46:47 Anna Anna Mongunda refers to a person

46:50 who was active in the resistance in Namibia.

46:52 She was an overherrero.

46:55 The German genocide of the Nama and Oaherrero

46:58 happened just about 30 years before the Holocaust.

47:01 And some postcolonial scholars argue that German colonial violence paved

47:06 the way for the racism and violence of the Third Reich.

47:09 To better understand how racism has shaped German

47:12 history and to help prevent it in the present,

47:15 activists like Dela have been working with the city

47:17 to teach Berlin residents about the country's colonial legacy.

47:22 To explain racism, we need to understand where racist ideas come from.

47:27 They did not arise recently and certainly not

47:29 within a limited time frame between 1945 and 1933, for example, in Germany.

47:35 Instead, we must clearly state that this construct,

47:38 this development of racist ways of thinking

47:40 and attitudes has been developing for hundreds of years.

47:44 Over the last 6 years, local authorities with the support

47:47 of the federal government have funded artist residencies,

47:50 walking tours, lectures, and revisions to museum displays,

47:54 all critical of the nation's colonial past.

47:57 The city also funds the decolonized Berlin coordinating office

48:01 which commisss studies on how colonial thinking shapes healthcare,

48:05 education and law among other topics.

48:08 It also supports campaigns to remove

48:09 the names of procolonial figures from public spaces

48:13 and replace them with the names of people

48:15 who fought against racism and colonialism like Anamonga.

48:19 Recently, the Berlin Senate approved a new

48:22 citywide plan for memorials related to colonialism.

48:25 It calls for the creation of a learning

48:27 and remembrance site in the heart of Berlin.

48:30 The center would be one of the first of its kind in Europe,

48:33 but making it happen depends in part on funding from the federal government.

48:37 And after a half decade of support from progressive governing coalitions,

48:42 last year, both the local and federal government shifted to the right.

48:47 Now, some of that enthusiasm for decolonial work is waning.

48:51 In response to the country's economic crisis,

48:53 federal budget cuts have forced Berlin to reduce funding for culture and media.

48:58 That means less money is available to the more than

49:00 a dozen civil society organizations that drive the city's decolonial work.

49:06 And then there's the question of the federal government's historical

49:09 priorities given Germany's focus on other dark periods of its past.

49:14 Germany's national memorials follow a federally

49:16 approved national memorial concept which currently focuses

49:20 on the dictatorship in the former

49:22 German Democratic Republic and the Third Reich.

49:28 At a December hearing, Federal Culture Minister Wulram Vimma rejected a proposal

49:33 to add German colonial crimes to that concept

49:36 after the Central Council of Jews in Germany

49:38 warned that it could overshadow Holocaust remembrance.

49:44 At a time when hatred of Jews has returned to society

49:46 in such an aggressive way and is causing us fundamental problems,

49:50 I understand the sensitivity toward any form of relativization.

49:53 Even if it is not intended, I know that even if it is not the ulterior motive,

49:58 but if it has that symbolic effect, then I am not doing that.

50:03 The minister said a separate memorial

50:05 concept would be developed for colonial remembrance,

50:08 but gave no timeline for when that would happen.

50:11 Awet Testas, a member of the Green Party in the German Parliament,

50:14 is part of the coalition fighting to add colonialism to the concept.

50:22 I think it is fundamentally wrong to think

50:24 that we have to decide which part of our culture

50:27 of remembrance is seen and which is not to think

50:30 that there is some kind of competition that doesn't exist.

50:38 The Decolonized Berlin Coordinating Office hosted a public

50:42 workshop to brainstorm where the movement should head next.

50:45 Johar son co-coordinates the office.

50:48 She said in the last few years there was a palpable feeling of momentum,

50:52 especially after the Black Lives Matter movement.

50:57 act.

50:58 I have the feeling that right now,

51:00 except for a few people who have always been committed to the issue,

51:03 the political situation in the world is such

51:05 that it is once again falling by the wayside.

51:09 Still, she's focused on building

51:11 connections between organizations that represent

51:14 marginalized communities in Berlin and decolonial projects in other countries.

51:18 Other priorities include the return of human remains and artifacts

51:22 taken during colonialism and now held in German museums.

51:26 and increasingly reparations,

51:29 the idea that European countries owe material compensation

51:32 to former colonies for the harms caused by colonialism.

51:37 These goals would require more government

51:39 buyin and coordination with international partners,

51:42 something hopes the state parliament elections

51:45 this fall might help make possible.

51:49 Back in the African quarter, Dela says the work of the last six years is just

51:53 the beginning of what it will take to reckon with Germany's colonial past.

52:00 We want to go to a new way of remembering, a new kind of remembrance,

52:04 not commemoration as a ritual, so to speak,

52:06 but really commemoration as an opportunity to change social conditions.

52:12 Annalise Finny, DW Berlin.

52:23 This week, our Spotify quiz takes the form of an absolute zinger of a putdown.

52:28 I quote, "The physical contact that is sought with the monument is far

52:32 from the objective emotional and intellectual awareness

52:35 that we expect and favor towards our monumental heritage.

52:38 We must not allow ourselves any conscientious concessions

52:41 to the ignorance and superficiality that characterize such actions.

52:45 Our goal must be to awaken and cure the civic sense of those who frequent

52:50 the city which is not only to show

52:52 respect towards others but also towards monuments.

52:56 What I want to know is was this a German

52:59 official reacting to a bungee jumping attempt from Berlin's Brandenburg tour?

53:05 Was it an Italian official reacting to a tourist climbing a Medici

53:10 era statue in Florence in an attempt to grope Neptune's genitals?

53:15 Or was it a Greek official anchored by graffiti on the Pathanon?

53:20 Apologies, by the way,

53:21 to everyone who tried to take part in last week's Spotify quiz.

53:25 We were temporarily locked out and couldn't post.

53:28 But I can confirm that the big daddy

53:31 of quantum physics is generally regarded as being Max Plank.

53:39 And that's it for today.

53:40 This program was produced by La Cabela and me Kate Leok assisted by Emma Meer.

53:45 Our sound engineer was Michelle Springer.

53:48 Don't forget to check out Delayland.

53:51 The podcast inside Europe comes to you from DW in Bon.

54:14 All right.