I consider myself a bit of a news junkie but I still don’t know all presidents/prime ministers of neighboring countries.
I will usually know the German ones (also because I often watch the news on German TV) but other than that I only know the ones that have been in office for a long time so I eventually pick them up. Orban (HU), Draghi (IT), Jansa (SLO) are the ones I currently know by heart.
How about you?
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I consider myself a news junky, too so I’d say I know them of all the neighbouring countries.
But I guess the average German knows only Macron. Kurz was also well known in Germany but I suspect few people know Nehammer.
I know of Drakeford (Wales,) Sturgeon (Scotland,) Varadkar (ROI,) Macron (F) and Scholz (D) certainly French and German elections get a certain amount of news coverage here, most people I think would know Sturgeon and Macron as Boris is always bickering with them!
France and Germany are usually covered, Austria only if there’s some big news and Italy essentially never. That’s at least in the Swiss German speaking part of Switzerland I would expect the Italian speaking part to cover Italy in more detail.
Owing to this distribution of coverage I know Macron and Scholz, in Austria it’s either Kunz or Kurz but I honestly don’t know which of the two it is. And I have absolutely no clue about Italy.
For completeness: Liechtenstein is also essentially never covered, the only cover they ever got was when their Fürstin (Countess? Princess? The wife of the current Prince, whatever her English title may be) died recently.
I don’t follow politics that often, I know maybe a couple former PMs from Sweden and that’s it. Obviously I do recognize some names if I read them, like Oluf Palme, Stefan Löfven and Angela. Here in Scandinavia, I will say though, that politicians are not afraid of criticizing each other across countries. I feel like it’s a part of our culture. One of my favourite videos on YouTube is a bit strange, because it’s [Danish and Swedish politicans discussion various topics with one another in their native language](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ETiMA8OQw), so no English. Clearly the Danish politicians won the discussion.
I just realised earlier this year that Finns still give Swedish kings a Finnish name. I somewhat understand former kings of Europe, but why on earth are Finns doing this?
https://fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaarle_XVI_Kustaa
🇵🇱 Marowiecki and Duda
🇱🇻 Kariņš
🇪🇪 Kallas
🇷🇺 Putin and Mišustin
🇧🇾 Lukašenka
🇫🇮 Marin
🇸🇪 Andersson
🇺🇦 Zelenskyj and Šmyhal
🇩🇪 Scholz and Steinmeier
🇨🇿 Fiala
🇸🇰 Čaputová
🇩🇰 Frederiksen
🇳🇱 Rutte
🇧🇪 Wilmes
🇬🇧 Johnson
🇫🇷 Macron and Castex
🇹🇷 Erdoğan
🇭🇺 Orbán
🇷🇴 Iohannis and Ciuca
🇮🇹 Draghi
🇧🇬 Petkov
🇬🇷 Mitsotakis
🇬🇪 Garibašvili
🇦🇲 Pašinjan
🇦🇿 Aliyev
🇨🇾 Anastasiades
🇦🇱 Rama
🇷🇸 Brnabić and Vućić
🇭🇷 Plenković
🇸🇮 Janša
🇻🇦 Franciscus
🇪🇸 Sánchez
🇵🇹 Costa
🇮🇪 Martin
🇰🇿 Toqayev
🇱🇺 Bettel
🇨🇦 Trudeau
🇺🇲 Biden
I don’t know the name of the Croatian PM or president.
I knew the names of the former Slovenian ones, and since Vucic (Serbia) is in power for so long, his name as well.
Slovak PM’s and presidents are I think at least covered, because of the large Hungarian minority living there, not sure about Romania (where the most Hungarians live outside of Hungary). I know the name of the Romanian president, but with all the frequent changes of the PM, and given how little time they usually serve, I don’t know them. I know there was a short period when the Romanian PM was also called Orban (Ludovic Orban).
I personally knew Zelensky was elected, because I used to watch Kvartal 95, but I think that was covered in Hungarian media, because his victory was so unexpected.
And since I live part time in Austria, I also follow Austrian news, so I know the Austrian PM’s and president’s name.
I know Denmark’s, Norway’s and Finland’s. Nordic politics don’t get too much attention in the news outside of elections though.
Here’s a breakdown of how many times different world leaders were mentioned in news programs in 2020 by Swedish public broadcasting.
[https://naringslivets-medieinstitut.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Diagram_Klar.png](https://naringslivets-medieinstitut.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Diagram_Klar.png)
Yes, the media is obsessed with the US.
I’d know nearly all the European leaders and would know a fair amount about the politics of the UK, Germany, France and some others.
The average person would know a lot about UK politics and among countries, I think everyone would know Macron. Not sure if Scholz has a big enough profile yet, bet Merkel was very well known.
I know Orban for obvious reasons.. also Lukashenko, tho the former is barely a real president
Macron of France, important victory vs Le Pen and strong connections with Mutti Merkel
Scholz as the new German chancellor, Olaf is a cool name, don’t know much about him
Sebastian Kurz, known for being a very young conservative, now former chancellor of Austria, also has the unfortunate or funny last name, being very close sounding to “dick” or “rooster” in slovenian. Don’t know who the current president is, but I know Kurz resigned, after a scandal or something.
Sanna Marin, ofcourse the finnish president, young and competent, doing pullups, being badass, etc.
Boris the clown Johnson
Andrej Plenković of Croatia, buddy of Janša – our wannabe forever president who is now leaving office
Silvio Berlusconi is the last italian president I can think of, I know he hasn’t been president for a while now, but he seemed like a guy who would never be unimportant, for better or worse..
thats about it..
Sweden, Norway and Estonia I usually know. They are probably most covered in the news together with big European countries (Germany, France, UK). The neighbour on the east makes it very easy, they are not big on changing the leading asshats very often so no problem there either.
I spontaneously went through our neighbours. I only remembered the surnames of some of the prime ministers. In terms of representative posts, I only know Milos Zeman in the Czech Republic, who is an alcoholic and sometimes says “funny” things live on TV, and Alexander van der Bellen in Austria.
France= Emmanuel Macron
Luxembourg= Bettel (I know him from the news 😉 because 2/3 of his doctoral thesis was plagiarised)
Belgium= ?
Dutchies= Mark Rutte
Denmark= Mette Frederiksen
Poland= Morawiecki
Czech Republic= Robert Fiala
Austria= Karl Nehammer
Switzerland= good question, last year Guy Parmalin was Bundespräsident, but that changes every year, wild guess Alain Berset
So in the Republic, Northern Ireland isn’t really considered a foreign country like France is. So their politics are followed and covered just as closely as the Republic’s if not more. For example if you ask someone in Ireland what is the biggest lake, they will say Lough Neagh which is in Northern Ireland. So events that occur in Northern Ireland are usually considered equally as important as events that occur in the Republic. Events in Great Britain are considered important, and are probably covered a little more than other foreign countries, but they are not as common as NI news stories.
I am also a bit of a news junkie so I’ll list the ones I know by heart that are in and around Ireland.
Ireland: Michael Martin
Northern Ireland: but complicated at the moment. There is no government, but it should be Michelle O Neill
Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon
UK: Boris Boi
France:Macron
Spain: Pedro Sanchez
Netherlands: Not sure but if I guess I’d say something like Rutte, I can picture his face.
If I skipped anything it means I don’t know them.
I imagine your average Joe in mainland Britain would struggle to tell you a single thing they know about politics in (the Republic of) Ireland. The only Taoiseach I imagine most people would have heard of (at least those who didn’t live through the Troubles) was Leo Varadkar since he was quite prominent during Brexit negotiations, plus maybe some politicians associated with Irish Republicanism like Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness. Irish politics just doesn’t get any coverage at all in mainstream media.
Honestly, I consider myself relatively knowledgeable about international politics and I know embarrassingly little about Irish politics. I know there are two centre-right parties (FF and FG) that have dominated politics since independence, the current Taoiseach *I think* is Micheal Martin, they’ve had a number of constitutional referenda recently about social issues like gay marriage and abortion, the President is a short guy who’s famous for his dogs, ummm… Sinn Fein, ummm…there’s that guy who make speeches about Palestine that go viral…
These questions are almost always exclusively answered by people who know, so I’m gonna chime in and say that i don’t know the names of any of the Swedish or Norwegian leaders that have been throughout my life or the ones they have now. I’m sure i’ve been told by the news on several occasions, but it doesn’t stick.
I know af Angela Merkel, but I don’t remember the name of the current dude of Germany either.
There are bound to be many Danes who remember these things, but there are certainly many of us who don’t really care and therefore don’t remember.
As someone who does follow politics (including European politics) more closely than most people I know, I’m not that great at knowing that. I’ll confess I don’t know the name of the Belgian PM – I knew it when it was Charles Michel, but since then? No idea, and I do feel bad about that, I’ll look it up when I’m done with answering here. Don’t know Luxembourg either, though I don’t feel too bad about that. Switzerland has a federal council, which I know there’s a figurehead of, but I don’t know that either. Obviously I do know the other ones though – Olaf Scholz, Mario Draghi and Pedro Sanchez. Oh, and Jair Bolsonaro if we’re counting that border (but don’t ask me to name Suriname’s president).
>Do you know the names of presidents and/or prime ministers of your neighboring countries?
The Netherlands doesn’t have too many neighbours, but I do know them: President Steinmeier and Chancelor Scholz for Germany, King Philippe and Prime Minister De Croo for Belgium & Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the UK.
>How well are politics of neighboring countries covered in the news?
The UK and Germany get quite a bit of news coverage, although the UK gets probably the most. The most important laws or policy changes tend to get some attention, usually in the context of what it could mean for us or Europe. Overall you’d still have no real clue about the daily state of politics in either countries, but you’ll get news about the most important or shocking stuff.
Belgian politics get mostly ignored, aside from the aftermath of elections (and to point out it can take a while to form a government), when a really big scandal has happened or to point out that the Walloons and Flemish can have different opinions on stuff.
Sweden, yes. Russia, only the president. Estonia, hmm, their new president is Karis, and the PM is Kaija… surname something that starts with K. Norway’s previous PM was Solberg, but I don’t remember the name of the current guy.
Sweden is covered quite a lot in the news. Russia gets a fair bit of attention too, but that’s probably true for most countries right now… The other neighbours are mainly covered when there’s something special going on, such as an election.
I know who rules Belarus and who’s the president of Ukraine. When it comes to Lithuania, Slovakia and Czech Republic, I have literally no idea. Germany? I’ve stopped at Angela Merkel, I don’t know who took her place.
The Netherlands: Rutte
France: Macron
Luxembourg: Bettel
Germany: Scholz
France definitely gets the most coverage here in Flanders. And I’m sure it gets even more coverage in Wallonia. Germany gets mentioned a lot, but this has mainly to do with EU things. Dutch politics actually don’t get that much coverage imo, even though we speak the same language. And if you only watch the news, you wouldn’t even know Luxembourg existed.
– Netherlands: Rutte is prime minister
– Denmark: Can’t remember
– Poland: Duda is president and the other guy (I only remember what he looks like) is prime minister
– Czechia: Is Babis still one of them?
– Austria: Nehammer is chancellor, is president still Van der Bellen?
– Switzerland: Can’t remember
– France: Macron is president
– Belgium: Can’t remember
– Luxembourg: Not sure I ever knew
Non-neighbouring countries, better to just state the ones I know:
– Hungary: Orban is president
– UK: Johnson is prime minister
– Serbia: Vucic is president
– Belarus: Lukashenko is president
– Russia: Putin is president
– Ukraine: Selensky is president
– Romania: Is Klaus Iohannis still one of them?
– Finland: Ninistö is … president? The pretty woman is prime minister?