What happened when we paired up thousands of strangers to talk politics

Now, this is Joanna.

Joanna works at a university in Poland,

and one Saturday morning at 3am,

she got up, packed her rucksack,

and traveled more than
a thousand kilometers

only to have a political argument

with a stranger.

And his name is Kristof,

and he's a customer manager from Germany,
and the two had never met before.

They only knew that they were
totally at odds over European politics,

over migration, or the relationship
to Russia or whatever.

And they were arguing for almost one day.

And after that, Joanna sent me
a somewhat irritating email.

"That was really cool and I enjoyed
every single minute of it!"

So these are Tom from the UK
and Niels from Germany.

They also were strangers,

and they are both supporters
of their local football team,

as you may imagine, Borussia Dortmund
and Tottenham Hotspur.

And so they met at the very spot
where football roots were invented,

on some field in Cambridge,

and they didn't argue about football

but about Brexit.

And after talking for many hours
about this contentious topic,

they also sent a rather unexpected email.

"It was delightful and we both
enjoyed it very much."

So in Spring 2019,

more than 17,000 Europeans
from 33 countries

signed up to have a political argument.

Thousands crossed their borders to meet
a stranger with a different opinion,

and they were all part of a project
called "Europe Talks."

Now, talking about politics

amongst people with different opinions
has become really difficult,

not only in Europe.

So families are splitting,
friends no longer talk to each other,

we stay in our bubbles.

And these so-called