The Price of Europe
Financial failures, and what they cost Europe.
Documentaries about corporate scandals and failed public projects in Europe, and about what they left behind: in law, in oversight, and in the lives of ordinary people.
Every film
Three questions
What happened
The scandal or the failed project, told from the record: documents, court filings, official reports and the people who were there.
What it changed
The laws, the oversight and the institutions that were rewritten afterwards, and whether they work.
Who paid
The cost that reached ordinary people: savers, workers, customers, taxpayers. Followed as far as the evidence goes, and no further.
The first film
Wirecard
In June 2020, a member of Germany's leading stock index admitted that €1.9 billion on its balance sheet probably did not exist. The first film follows the case from the company's rise to the Munich trial, the reform of German audit and financial supervision that followed, and who carried the cost.
It will be released after the verdict in Munich.
Standards
How we work
Every claim is sourced
Facts come from documents, court records, official reports and on-the-record interviews. The sources for each film are published alongside it.
We show how sure we are
Where a film traces consequences, each link is labelled by the strength of the evidence behind it.
Legal status, stated plainly
For every person named, we say where they stand in law: under investigation, charged, convicted, acquitted, or never charged.
Right of reply
People and companies facing criticism are given the chance to respond before publication. Their answers, or their refusal to answer, are included.
Nothing staged
No invented dialogue, no reconstructions presented as real footage, and no AI-generated images passed off as documents or events.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we correct it openly and note what changed. Write to contact@thepriceofeurope.com.
Newsletter
The notes behind the films
Sources, documents and background for each documentary, in your inbox when a film is released. Free, published on Substack.
About
Who makes the films
The Price of Europe is made by Ekrem Ekici, a journalist and documentary producer based in Paris and Berlin.
The channel is independent. If it carries sponsorship in future, it will be labelled as such and kept separate from the reporting.
Contact: contact@thepriceofeurope.com