Listen: Has noise become a political issue in Europe?

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network. EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms. Find the full transcript below: The clink of glasses. A bottle smashing on the pavement. Loud conversations. Bass so powerful it makes your windows rattle. In some of Europe’s most popular destinations, excessive noise has become so common that residents are now demanding what they call a “right to peace and quiet.” How do we keep our cities vibrant without making them unbearable for the people who live there? When Aleksandra joined her neighbourhood council in Warsaw, she thought she’d spend her time dealing with fairly mundane local issues: renovating rubbish shelters or cutting back on summer lawn mowing. Instead, one issue quickly dominated every discussion: noise. Writing for Krytyka Polityczna, our Polish partner in the Sphera Network, she recalls: "One evening, around 20 furious residents turned up at the neighbourhood council office, ready to tear apart whoever they blamed for the sleepless nights they'd endured. The problem was the all-night summer parties in nearby clubs, running from Thursday through to Monday morning. [...] People were exhausted. I still remember one young woman saying that every Monday night, she was already anxious because she knew she only had three peaceful nights left before it all started again." Warsaw is far from the only European city where tensions between residents and nightlife are coming to a head. For years, Amsterdam has tried to discourage young British tourists from travelling to the city. Budapest is trying to end the so-called "party tourism". Biarritz, in France, is also looking for ways to curb late-night disturbances. As the article in Krytyka Polityczna points out, this isn't simply about the occasional noisy night that a pair of earplugs can solve. The World Health Organization now considers environmental noise to be Europe's second most significant environmental health risk, behind air pollution.