European Struggles in the Age of Trump with Niccolò Milanese

In this episode of the Vienna Coffee House Conversations, Ivan Vejvoda welcomes Niccolò Milanese, a poet and one of the founding directors of European Alternatives. Their conversation explores the fragility of democracy in Europe amid global turbulence, touching on the European Union’s role in upholding democratic values, the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the resurgence of great power politics. Milanese reflects on the continuity of struggles for freedom, linking Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty to past democratic revolutions. He critiques the failures of Western elites in conveying the existential stakes of these conflicts and examines how corporate and technological forces have eroded democratic engagement.

Niccolò Milanese is a political theorist, activist, and co-founder of European Alternatives, a transnational movement advocating for democracy and equality beyond nation-states. He has co-authored Citizens of Nowhere: How to Save Europe from Itself and edited Illiberal Democracies in Europe: An Authoritarian Response to the Crisis of Liberalism. Milanese regularly advises cultural, political, and activist organizations on issues of European democracy, citizenship, and generational change.