826 Ask the Senior Nomads; What Europeans Are Talking About

21:38Rick Steves:War and destruction, yes. War and destruction, yeah. I would say it really is a double-edged sword. But by now, I would say I'm happy to enjoy the good sides of Germany, but also pretty much know what I'm critical of my country. Agnes, Poland is a very important country, but it's kind of a new country, relatively new country, into the whole Western European mix, the EU and so on. So we think of Spain and Italy and France and Germany as the big players. But Poland is as big and as populous, and it has a very important economy as well. How is the European Union working out for the people of Poland?

22:18Well, for my generation, you know, Europe started and opened for us. Well, the beginning was solidarity in 1980, and then we were the first country to get freedom out of the communist regime. before Berlin Wall collapsed, Poland was a free-democratic country, just several weeks. Anyway, for me, Europe was the possibility of studying abroad. The possibility of going abroad without showing a passport on the border as we discussed traveling.

22:49Rick Steves:Isn't that something? That's a big deal if you lived in the Warsaw Pact. Yeah, that was impossible. So we just had our small bubble. If you wanted to go skiing before that bubble, you went to Zakopane. Exactly. Now I can go to Alps. One place the Poles went to ski, Zakopane. The Bulgarians, one place they went to go to the beach, the Black Sea coast. The Hungarians, what's the big lake? Oh, Balaton. Balaton. All the way, you had to go to those places. And suddenly, Europe is your oyster. The world is your playground. We always wear, you know, central mathematical point, Central mathematical point of European continent is very close to Warsaw.

23:30Rick Steves:And very few people remember that. Now, isn't that interesting? And that was a big decision we made here on our staff. Thank you very much. We have a guidebook. And if you want to sell a guidebook to Poland and Hungary and Czech Republic and former Yugoslavia, you call it Eastern Europe because that's what Americans know. Because we divide Europe by the Iron Curtain because that's so fundamental to how we see it. There's free and communist Europe divided by the Iron Curtain, and it's east and west. But, of course, the people who live there, like you said, Poland is geographically the center of Europe, not Paris.

24:01And historically, we were always very much to the West, but mentality placed us behind the Iron Curtain, and that's why this is such a great place.

24:10Rick Steves:So the EU is a pretty good thing, considering your history. Well, exactly. You'll never be gobbled up by Germany or Russia again. Wow. We're getting a look at some of the ongoing topics that our European friends have been discussing lately right now on Travel with Rick Steves. Our panel includes Agnes Siroka. She's a tour guide from Gdansk in Poland who started out showing the sights of Polish history to her elementary school students. Michael Dempsey is a British tour guide who specializes in German-language tours and destinations and also lives in a small town in the Italian Alps. And Holger Zimmer is a guide in Germany and across Europe and is a broadcast producer for RBB Public Broadcasting in Berlin.

24:54Rick Steves:Now, when you think of the European currency, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. How do you have a currency for 20 or however many countries use the EU? What do you put on it? Well, Poland, despite the fact we are members of European Union since 2004, we still use Polish currency. So you don't have to worry about that. Yes, we still use Polish slurries. But other countries do, and that's a challenge. It's just how does Europe get along together? Holger, do you see what I'm trying to say? it's a trick to get 20 countries to give up a little of their sovereignty to do it. I mean, because Germany is the kind of, typically, Germany will be right there and he'll take care of it, you know.

25:32Yeah, but to be honest, like, to me, the euro was, like, personally, really, it's a bad decision. Like, because, you know, maybe it's, like, kind of being nostalgic, but I really thought, like, our German mark was a good, very hard and healthy currency. And now we're kind of, like, we're kind of more floating in space with this uncertainty of like those, all the different member states having very different like economic power. And that is... Well, productivity.

25:59Rick Steves:Absolutely. I mean, Germans would have a stronger currency because Germany is more productive. Has been, yeah, the case. Because of a number of things. Yeah. But when everybody has the same currency, some people can freeload on that and some people weigh it down and some people boost it up. But it's more cumbersome, I think. And it's a complicated thing. It is a complicated thing. And it was a political project more than an economical need, really. I'm interested to talk in the next five or ten years, you know, where we stand. What might happen with that? But does that threaten the European Union?

26:30I don't know. I think it's more the other way around. I think it's more like the political implications of that euro could actually be difficult affecting, like, you know, the economy. What do you think the major accomplishment of the European Union has been? Of course, to sit down and say, listen, let's, after hundreds and hundreds of years, of bloody wars try to get together and work together. And that is a beautiful thing. And that's absolutely what I love. That overrides

26:55Rick Steves:all the other things that you could make an excuse for the European Union because I think your economies are intertwined now where you can't really imagine going to war. Because a free trade zone is an important part of it. Yeah. But you've also got that interwoven economies. But I think the idea of Europe for me personally really is like people getting together, working together, and the whole idea of like the Schengen zone or like which is free kind of travel or free product goods traveling freely. I think that is, for me, would be secondary. The first thing is the idea of like Polish from Poland to Denmark to Spain, Italy, finding common values and common ground.

27:36Rick Steves:I think the visionaries who set Europe into motion were standing on the rubble of Europe in 1947. Yes. And they said twice in our lifetimes we've bombed ourselves and we've got to rebuild these cities. We've got to weave our economies together. We've got to have... We've got to create a European Union just so we don't go to war again. And it's been totally... In that consideration, you've got to celebrate the EU. This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're looking at many of the political trends and big issues in the news in Europe lately. We're gaining perspectives on what people are talking about in Europe right now.

28:08Rick Steves:Our guides are Agnes Rokab from Gdansk in Poland, Holger Zimmer from Berlin in Germany, and Michael Dempsey, who is a British man who lives in northern Italy. We have links to our guests with each show's notes, and that's at ricksteves.com slash radio. Michael, speaking of celebrating the EU, you guys took off, Britain. Now, Brexit is kind of old news now, isn't it? What's the assessment now that it's gone? I was just in London, and it seems like it wasn't as dire as people were predicting, but what do you think? I think it's every bit as dire, if not more so than people were predicting. Again, I'm not speaking only in terms of the economic impact, which has been significant and detrimental, but also in terms of how British people relate to the rest of the world and how their values and ideals are informed.

29:01But yeah, look, that's got to be based in peace, prosperity, and predictability. And Brexit has undermined all three of those things. I'm encouraged, however, to see that the British government right now are making approaches to the European Union in terms of something called the European Defense Pact as part of a coalition of the willing that is looking to deal with the clear and present danger from the East in the form of Vladimir Putin's Russia and the war in Ukraine.

29:35Rick Steves:But Brexit did not threaten NATO and Europe's collective defense. Oh, I absolutely think it did. It did, huh? Because I think that's why it has also been demonstrated that Vladimir Putin was contributing to the Brexit campaigns. I mean, that's been established. Isn't that something? There's an evidence-based claim. Putin is just like, he's a busy little guy. Putin would be delighted if, was delighted by Brexit. He would be delighted by any damage or diminishing of the EU. And there were British politicians who were wittingly or unwittingly colluding in that. I don't know. Like, to me, being an outsider of British politics, I think, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the issues that, you know, made Brexit happen was the idea that people said, listen, we'd rather want to, let's say, decide for ourselves how many and what kind of people we'd like to leave into our country.

30:35And that is something that, you know, is an issue that is not just talked about in Germany. It's in France. It's in Italy. It's like the issue of immigration. Absolutely. Not just only like helping people in need, but also at the same time, what numbers can we actually take in and what kind of people are coming into our country? And does it help us? as you said Agnes like you know contributing to the economy maybe or helping an aging population but also on the other hand how much of like really a benefit is it and I see a lot of actually to be honest quite negative points of this 10 years of unhinged people coming in we don't really know who they are who wants the story and that to me is an issue that we also need to talk about and I think that is something that

31:23Rick Steves:So there's a reality you can have a big heart and say open the doors bring these people in but you can also have a practical take on the consequences of that.

31:37Rick Steves:In a minute, we'll continue our discussion on the impacts of Britain's referendum to secede from the European Union. It passed by a 52 % vote 10 years ago now. And we'll ask our guests what are the ideals they hold for the societies they live in. That's just ahead as we hear more of what people are talking about in Europe lately on Travel with Rick Steves. We're touching on some of the topics you might hear people discussing in the cafes and town squares of Europe right now with three friends who are well-versed in explaining things to the American visitors they guide on tours in Europe. Michael Dempsey is British, used to live in Berlin, now makes his home in a small town in the Italian Alps.

32:18Rick Steves:Holger Zimmer is raising his family in Berlin and also produces arts programming for public radio there. And Agnes Siroga comes to us from Galantz, in Poland. Keep in mind that while the news headlines keep changing at a dizzying pace lately, our discussion was recorded in February 2026, so it centers mostly on the longer-term issues that the nations of Europe continue to face. Michael, just to finish up a little bit about Brexit, if I'm an English voter and I'm sort of assessing how Brexit has impacted my life now that it's quite established, what have the impacts been? Well, what we're talking about for a small majority now of British voters is regret.

33:00Now, there will be others who we're talking to a small majority over 50%. I think we feel somewhat isolated. Others will say, well, we have our sovereignty back. In terms of what that actually means in terms of practical benefits, I'm sorry, I can't answer that question. I don't see any. So I don't think we give up sovereignty through participation in the EU or compromise it or diminish it in any way. I think we pool it. And it is a confederation. I think you deploy your sovereignty in what is an economic, diplomatic, political, defense-driven, I don't know, kind of union. And we've now got no access to that.

33:47We have to pay effectively tariffs to trade with the EU. I mean, there is no more frictionless trade. There's a mountain of paperwork to do for people who want to trade with our biggest trading partner, which is the EU. I think the largest single market in the world. And, yeah, again, in terms of national security, we no longer have the levels of cooperation that we used to. And that's why, yeah, I think the British government certainly are approaching an incremental return to the EU, at least in terms of alignment.

34:23Rick Steves:Yeah, so they're softening the split as well as they can. And Holger, I've been thinking about the ideals of America lately because, you know, people in the United States wonder, what makes America great? And we always say it's the ideals. And one of those ideals is pluralism. That's the idea that different groups can coexist with equal rights, sharing one country without forced conformity. Do the Germans have a sense of these kind of ideals that are just universal ideals, or do they think of that as American ideals? Oh, interesting question. I mean, I would say that's maybe I really would like to get this question a bit broader because to me, I don't really consider like myself Germany as one, only one entity.

35:07I think I would really rather go in the European way. If you talk about pluralism, like pluralism for me means like I do enjoy the fact that we have such a variety of cultures, traditions, food and everything. And that is part of my heritage, too. You know, yes, I'm born in one country with this very special sort of like sausage and meat and whatever. But I do, to me, the same thing. I love to go to Italy for food. I love to have tapas in Spain, you know, or go to Polish and have pierogi. So it's that is more what I think is like cherish that. And that's maybe reflected in the idea of like Europe, of the regions, like not so much like one big roof and everyone is the same.

35:48And, you know, but more like cherish the differences.

35:51Rick Steves:Yeah, I'm just thinking when you talk about that, you said the word diversity. Wow, diversity is a word that organizations in the United States are taking out of anything printed because you can lose funding if you even say the word diversity. The EU literally funds diversity. If you're representing a small ethnic group that isn't a big national organization, your state capital is not going to give you any money, but you go to Brussels and you'll get some money because that's diversity. That makes the menu more tasty. and you got the EU, you got fascism, you got what's going on in these angry right-wing governments and a lot of it is just, do you embrace diversity?

36:29Rick Steves:Do you celebrate diversity or are you afraid of diversity? Agnes, when you think about us talking about these ideals, you've been under communism, you've been free now, you've seen what's going on in Ukraine. What are your thoughts about these ideals that we all strive for in Poland? You know, diversity was always part of our identity because Polish borders changed so many times and we had so many different nationalities and small groups speaking different languages. And after the Second World War, when borders were decided without any small culture consideration, and during communism times, these small ethnic groups were not able to speak their language.

37:17It was forbidden to have small cultural identity. Under the Soviet Union? Under the communism times. So after the change after 1989, now after Poland joined European Union, that's why that's the great power of diversity and European Union is funding, as you said, small cultural identity can flourish.

37:42Rick Steves:So what's a region of Poland that might have its pride? For example, I live in Poland and that's part of Pomerania. So as you said about... Pomerania. See, I know nothing about Pomerania. And let's make that clear. Pomeranian dogs do not origin from Pomerania, but it's for another program. Because that's all I know about Pomerania. Okay. But talking about flags, we have European Union flag, we have Polish flag, we have flag of Gdansk City, and we have flag of Pomerania as a regional flag. And they do speak different language that was forbidden during communism times. And even before that, the largest Jewish population, I understand, anywhere outside of the Holy Land, I guess, was in Poland.

38:26Yes, that was also. For centuries. For centuries in Europe. Exactly.

38:30Rick Steves:The more you understand about the complexity of this, the more it's just boggling to think that Europe could get this together. I've read a couple books about the European Union and the Constitution and the idealism, and it meets with reality sometimes and political reality and people's concern about refugees. If you've got a small country of six million people and you're homogenous and you let in a million refugees, if you're going to have some consequences in that, you can't undo it. So it's a complicated thing, isn't it? Certainly complicated. Yeah. But what's simple is that, yeah, we kind of depend for a positive future upon a shared, solidaristic sense of shared European identity.

39:11and I'm deeply concerned that the right in Europe that focuses on ethnic, if not even racial-based nationalism is getting in the way of that.

39:26Rick Steves:We're looking at political trends in Europe right now on Travel with Rick Steves from a European perspective. Our guides are Holger Zimmer from Germany, Agnes Sirocco from Poland, and Michael Dempsey, a Brit who's settled into a small town in northern Italy. Lately, I've been thinking about how America impacts the world economically. We just, you know, our president knows that he can really bully people around with tariff policies. I'm wondering what the thought is in Europe on America's impact potentially to the economy. And if we can intimidate Europe into going our way with economic threats, it must be kind of a strange place to be in Europe.

40:07Rick Steves:Holger? Yeah, big time. I mean, I think what Michael was saying earlier, the word like predictability, I think that is really what's kind of gone out of the window. And that's difficult. Like ideology, like in terms of like how is our friendship with the United States going, you know? And of course, we can differentiate between people on the ground and the government. That's always a good thing to do. I mean, you know, think about Berlusconi or think about the Polish government. So it's always good to not equate the people and the country with the government, the current government. But when it comes to economy, I would say we are really in unstable times, and you never really know what kind of the next move is.

40:46Rick Steves:Because there's unpredictability coming from the United States, which really has so much power. I think predictability is a foundation of economics. Even if it's not the best, if it's predictable, at least you know what you're dealing with. So, yeah, we're kind of in unstable times, and I think maybe that's what Michael also was saying. it makes Europe having come to terms to what are our solutions you know what are all our own answers to instabilities and threats and personally I'd rather think of Europe as an ideal sort of working together on many levels on the other hand I'm not a big fan of like this idea of like a United States of Europe or something because I know what bureaucracy and really corruption looks like in Brussels and in the European Union so I'd rather not have more of that because that's something I don't trust.

41:38Rick Steves:I understand there's a lot of powerful lobbyists in Brussels. Big time, absolutely. More than I would have liked to think. I thought, oh, I thought Europe was above that. But it's, a lot of the laws are written by lobbyists, to be honest, in Brussels. And that's something that we have to really take into account. How is the economy in Germany just in general right now? Oh, I would say we're in pretty deep waters. Yeah. So it's actually we're facing difficulties with energy policies that probably are not doing us very well that we did in the last couple of years. And also, we have a really decline of car manufacturing and all the surrounding industries like those people who work for that.

42:23So at the moment, I actually see pretty bleak for German economy now.

42:28Rick Steves:Michael, when you hear Holger talking about the German economy, I mean, do you think, well, that's pretty much the same all over Europe or does it vary a lot from country to country? I think what excites me and what gives me a sense of hope is that the uses of adversity for the European Union rather than Great Britain in this instance, where there is a single market, of course, mean that we could make some progress. Yes, we've got a very, very small window, in my opinion, between the probable removal of Viktor Orban from Hungary at the next election and the probable arrival of a French president from the far right thereafter.

43:08What we need is to do a lot more that takes us towards the United States of Europe to be able to centralize the mechanisms that enable us to become more competitive and more productive and all the rest. National governments can't do that anymore.

43:24Rick Steves:Agnes, Michael was just talking about Orban being defeated, the Trump's favorite friend, the wannabe dictator or autocrat ruling Hungary, who's done a great job in rewiring that society to be not a democracy. What do you think the future is for these kind of leaders? You've had that in Poland, but you pulled back from the brink. Well, and we came back to those waters again because, yeah, we've struggled with the right-wing government, majority of our government, two terms. And, again, an example of solidarity, because last fall more Polish people decided to vote for, you know, to get rid of the right-wing party in the parliament that voted for solidarity in 1989.

44:11So there was a great success. However, next year, presidential elections, and Polish people decided to elect a right-wing president, surprisingly. No one expected that.

44:25Rick Steves:Is that a plurality or a majority? Majority. A majority, wow. This is Travel with Rick Steves. I'm joined by Michael Dempsey from Britain, Agnes Sirocco from Poland, and Holger Zimmer from Berlin in Germany. And we're talking about what Europeans are talking about right now in their news. You know, every country is dealing with these same dynamics and some of the same root concerns, and they need to be addressed. I mean, half of the society is upset about something pretty bad to make those kind of compromises to embrace this sort of thing. I'm just wondering, what are the... We've got abortion, we've got gay rights, we've got refugees, climate change.

45:03Rick Steves:What are some... What are the big culture war issues, Agnes, in Poland? Well, especially, well, gay rights, this is something that we put under the carpet, but especially in the nation. Because Poland is relatively homophobic compared to the rest of Europe. And around 90 % of Poles are practicing Roman Catholic. And it's Catholic. Because you're the most Catholic country and the most homophobic country. How about abortion? Is that a big issue in Poland? It is. It is a big issue. So that's predictable, and people will vote. I know people, you know, bless their hearts, they'll vote for abortion more than they'll vote for democracy.

45:37Well, there was a bill prepared to buy abortion several years ago at any circumstances. Next day, thousands of Polish women fled streets, and it was bun and stopped.

45:49Rick Steves:Michael, I think Ireland has a lot of these Catholic-related culture war issues that they've struggled with over the decades. How about Britain? What are the big issues that divide people? So I think a lot of it's manufactured by right-wing media, but there has been a big focus on writer J.K. Rowling and the trans issue. So trans, that would be a classic example to me of a culture war issue. Sure, absolutely. There's three trans athletes on girls' basketball courts in an entire country, and people vote on that basic thing. I think that's diminishing. I think the intensity of the culture war is kind of diminishing because it's emotionally rather than rationally led and people can only hold an anger for so long or hold an outrage.

46:40At the same time, at the same time, we do actually have bigger stuff for the 24-hour news cycle to worry about. So I think that's diminished somewhat. But there's a residue of intolerance. intolerance, there's a residue of dissatisfaction, discontent, disgruntled voters who seek then to express themselves emotionally at the ballot box and reform profit from that.

47:10Rick Steves:This is Travel with Rick Steves. We've been talking with three European friends, Michael Dempsey from Britain, Agnes Sroka from Poland, and Holger Zimmer from Germany. And we're talking about what they're talking about in Europe. And a lot of Americans, when they travel, they want to join the conversation. So to wrap up our conversation, I would love one tip from each of you on advice for an American tourist, if they want, in your country, to get into a good conversation about some of the things we've been talking about right now. Would they be welcome? And how would they find that? Michael? So I would keep it non-partisan.

47:45And I would kind of say, so where were you 10 years ago in your sort of daily life in terms of how does that compare to where you are now in your daily life. So I would say, okay, let's say it's 2026 now. How were things back in 2016 for you compared to today?

48:02Rick Steves:That'd be a good way to... Yeah. Can I buy you a beer? Yeah, exactly. Agnes. Talking about beer, well, I think always common ground is food. Food, drinks, that helps to break the ice and get deeper into other issues. But first come out of your bubble. be friendly. Assume you're interesting. Sit down in a bar and remember, get into a conversation. I mean, I think we are. It's fair to assume that we'd be an interesting person to talk to from anybody in Europe giving what's going on in the world right now. Holger, any advice? Yeah, I think like for a German but maybe also even European point, like we love to talk politics.

48:43We love to like bring it on and like exchange arguments and, you know, maybe go into like a nice little debate but still, you know, agree to disagree. And maybe I like the idea about going back, like what you, you know, 2016, what you just said, Michael. But I also would say, like, maybe you can open the discussion to say, like, hey, what are your dreams? What are your aspirations for, like, the future? And figuring out what maybe what troubles us both, like, you know, if we're talking about Americans and Europeans, like, you know, what are your qualms and your things, you know, then we figure it out that maybe we can find common solutions, even though we might have different ideas politically or socially, but we might find out that the bottom line is hey, we all want the same thing and we'd be happy to work together if we just get rid of those ideological, what's the word, in English, like blinders.

49:38Rick Steves:Wow, you guys, I'm inspired by this conversation. When I go to Europe, we've got a lot of things to explain and so do Europeans and we can all sit down and learn from each other because we're all struggling with basically the same issues. That's kind of what my takeaway is. None of us have it perfect. We've all got struggles, and we're all... Within our own countries, we're in the same boat, and beyond that, we're still in the same boat because of this amazing, ever-smaller world that we get to call home. Holger Zimmer, Agnes Srioka, and Michael Dimsey, thank you very much. Thank you, Ricky. Thank you.

50:11Rick Steves:Thank you. Let's get together and feel alright. One more thing! Travel with Rick Steves is produced at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington by Tim Tatton, Kazmira Hall, and Donna Bardsley. You can find links to our guests, listen to a podcast version of the show, and search the archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. We'll look for you again next week with more Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. I teach Europe, TV shows, guidebooks, and bus tours. And I wrote a book called Travel as a Political Act as well because I've learned that the very best souvenir is a broader perspective.

50:51Rick Steves:You can broaden yours by watching my travel specials, TV shows on Iran, Palestine, Israel, the story of fascism in Europe, that'll blow you away, and Hunger and Hope, lessons learned in Ethiopia and Guatemala. I've got shows ranging from Martin Luther and the Reformation all the way to Cuba. I love how 1 ,400 years ago, Mohammed said, don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you've traveled. You can stream these shows and many more for free at ricksteves.com.