Continuing my quest for “cool people of the European Parliament”, I present you Nathalie Loiseau, former diplomat, former director of ENA, former French Minister for EU affairs and much more. Loiseau’s clear and direct communication style makes her a prominent figure in European politics; I had the great pleasure to learn about her inspiring life and ideas.
It is quite rare to find ministers among the politicians who share my memes on social media; Baiba Braže, incumbent Latvian minister of foreign affairs (MFA) and former ambassador, is one of them, a sign that she has some sense of humor and a very direct communication style.
Kaja Kallas has been high on my list of cool people to meet for a couple of years. Not only did she inspire lots of memes, but she also retweeted some of them when she was Prime Minister of Estonia. It felt very natural to talk to her: she has a very direct communication style and a great sense of humour, as the genuine and colorful pictures on her social media accounts show.
Defence and Space are very hot topics these days; at EU level they are energetically managed by Andrius Kubilius, a sixty-eight years old physicist and former Prime Minister of Lithuania. I had the pleasure to sit down with him and talk about his life and experiences.
In my continuous effort to maintain a certain inter-institutional balance, I had the pleasure to interview the former (and youngest) European Commissioner, and now Member of the European Parliament, Virginijus Sinkevičius. What came out is a long, yet very inspiring, net zero to hero story.
It is the first time I venture out of my Commission comfort zone, interviewing a truly elected politician from the European Parliament. In these difficult times, when popular support is needed to take important decisions, a good Director-General knows he must get closer to those who are close to the people. And I am glad to start with Mārtiņš Staķis, manager, coffee expert, TV host, church treasurer, mayor of Riga and Member of the European Parliament.
At Colours of Ostrava, one of Czechia’s biggest culture and music festivals, I had the pleasure to meet and interview Martin Dvořák, the Czech Minister of EU affairs over a Czech beer and Belgian fries. As a passionate traveler, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask him about his life and his many missions abroad.
“I’m thirty-four and I am exhausted”, said Robin, who has been following the seventy-year-old Commissioner and lead candidate Nicolas Schmit in his campaign. “Yesterday we were in Portugal, today we are in Belgium, tomorrow we will be in Luxembourg, then Italy, Spain and Croatia”. I am happy Schmit found some time in his busy agenda to answer a few questions and listen to my meme speech.
“P. S. Whether you accept it or not, don’t worry: I will not ask Charles Michel for a rebound interview”. This is the last line of the diplomatic email I sent on the 24th of November 2023 to test if there was a possibility to interview the President of the European Commission.
Of the many politicians I follow online, no one communicates as clearly and effectively as the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Gabrielius Landsbergis. I started following him with interest during the diplomatic tensions between Lithuania and China in 2021; the appreciation was mutual, as he also retweeted some of my memes; this fact particularly impressed my Lithuanian friends, even those that didn’t vote for his party: “He is cool, his whole family is cool”.
