Topic: European Politics

Stefan Grobe

With over 30 years of journalistic experience, Stefan Grobe is one of Euronews’ most familiar faces. Based in Brussels, he produces and presents State of the Union, a weekly roundup of European affairs.

From 2012 to 2017, he has worked as Euronews’ Washington correspondent, having covered two presidential election and primary campaigns. Grobe reported live from Barack Obama’s Chicago headquarters on Election Day. On his more recent assignments, he covered the Sandy Hooks shooting and the US government shutdown. Grobe has routinely covered the White House and Congress, as well as the Washington-based international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

During his years at Euronews headquarters in Lyon, France, Stefan Grobe has served as Head of Business desk, Head of German-speaking Service, and host and producer of the Business Weekly show. He has covered numerous top international events, including the United Nations General Assembly, the World Economic Forum in Davos as well as G20 and G8 meetings.

Prior to Euronews, Grobe has worked for major news organisations, including Agence France-Presse, Germany’s dpa and Berlin-based newspaper Die Welt.

German-born, Stefan Grobe studied in Bonn, Hamburg and Paris and holds a PhD in American History on the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Timo Soini

Timo Juhani Soini (born 30 May 1962) is a Finnish politician who is the co-founder and former leader of the Finns Party. He served as Deputy Prime Minister of Finland from 2015 to 2017 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2019.

He was elected as a member of the Espoo city council in 2000 and the Parliament of Finland in 2003. In the 2009 European Parliament election he won a seat in the European Parliament, becoming the first member of the Finns Party in the European Parliament. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2009 until 2011, when he returned to the Finnish Parliament.

His party won the 2011 parliamentary election, with Soini himself winning the most votes of all candidates.

Soini has become one of the internationally best-known critics of European Union bailouts and safety mechanisms. Following the 2015 parliamentary election, his party joined a coalition government and Soini became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in May 2015.

In March 2017 Soini announced that he would step down as Chair of the Finns Party in June 2017. Soini later declared his intention to form a new parliamentary group and remain in the government, causing a split in the party. Soini was subsequently expelled from the party along with the other defector MPs.

Soini did not take part in the 2019 parliamentary election and announced soon after the election that he was leaving politics behind.

He 's recently published a book on populism.