Call it the "crisis crisis". A record surge in the number and frequency of extreme climate events afflicting millions of human beings is stretching Europe's disaster response system to the limit, a top EU official has warned.

Getting the European Green Deal finished is one of the EU Commission's top priorities in the last few months of the current legislative term. At stake is a major transformation of Europe's economies and societies, which could see the continent become climate neutral by 2050. But while we hear a lot about energy strategy, we hear less about another core element of the Green Deal: oceans and fisheries. Our guest is the European Commissioner in charge of Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius. Before joining the EU Commission in 2019, he was Minister of Economy and Innovation in the government of Lithuania, and a member of the Lithuanian parliament. We discuss the contamination of Europe's seas and how all of our habits will need to change, particularly on single-use packaging.

Enlargement of the European Union was one of the priorities outlined by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech on September 13th, and it is likely to become an ever more pressing issue over the next few years. After the speech, Talking Europe sat down with the EU Commissioner in charge of neighbourhood and enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi. He is a distinguished Hungarian diplomat and lawyer. He served as Hungary's ambassador to the EU, and has held prominent positions at the Hungarian ministry of justice and ministry of foreign affairs.