#EU09vsEU19 - What's changed in EU politics and social media?

EuroPasionaria has made a welcome return to EU blogging, and has asked old EU bloggers: what's changed? How has EU politics and communication changed online and how does it live up to the idealistic outlook of EU bloggers from a decade ago? La Oreja de Europa, Mathew Lowry and Polscieu have already posted their views under the hashtag #EU09vs19, and it's got me thinking about what has changed over the last decade.

I was mainly active from 2009-2014, actively reading up on and following the last two European elections, but as work commitments increased, I had less time to blog and haven't returned since the last election.  My interest in EU politics hasn't fallen away, however - after I moved back to the UK, I volunteered for some local campaigning in the Remain campaign, and Brexit has pretty much dominated the political concerns around me ever since (particularly as someone who grew up on the Irish border).

So what's changed?  And how do things compare to the aims of Eurobloggers?


EU politics, then and now

Back in 2009, EU affairs were rarely discussed in the national media - and even when they were discussed, it was with little detail and from a(n understandably) fairly narrow national perspective.  EU bloggers were largely people with some academic, work or life experience of the EU, who wanted to open up the EU institutions, politics and issues for wider debate.  It was a lot of fun and it was exciting to be part of an evolving debate and the small successes that the community had in gaining access to the EU Bubble and debating the issues (hey, reading government and parliamentary documents was big in 2009 - there was no Netflix and we had to make our own entertainment!).

The 2009 European elections saw a lot of anti-Barroso sentiment online, but a lacklustre campaign saw little change in the parliamentary arithmetic and he returned to lead the Commission.  The Eurocrisis, however, saw European issues merge with national issues in a major way not only in Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal, but also in other Member States faced severe economic circumstances and the big question: how much economic and social solidarity should there be in the EU?  "Europe" loomed larger in the national media, and encouraged more people to join the debate on social media, though often sticking to national silos.

At the 2014 elections, the Europarties tried to bring the debate to life by picking Spitzenkandidaten for the Commission presidency. It did little to stimulate much of a debate outside some circles, and by then the Euroblogosphere community had shrunk (I myself stopped blogging around this time).  Blogging can be time-intensive, so it's not surprising that people dropped out, but it was sad to see that new people weren't joining at quite the same rate.  Discussions moved on to other social media platforms (primarily Twitter), and the interested citizen-activist community of bloggers that lived in the curious middle ground between the media and academia was hollowed out.

What's different in 2019?  Things seem to be the same, only more so.  Brexit, the growth of anti-EU populism, the refugee crisis, and unfinished Eurozone reforms mean that European issues are even more at the forefront of national politics than ever before.  People are more energised on European issues and the debates are much more mainstream.  So many more take to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., to make their views known.  But the debate is now on the level of the fundamental direction of Europe and its nations in a way that doesn't fully air the key questions or truly hold people and institutions to account.  The Eurosceptic European conservatives and reformists may now have a Spitzenkandidat, but it's hard to claim there's much of a policy debate taking place.


Reasons to be Pessimistic, and causes for optimism

So the kind of long-form, institution-focused blogging that made up the early Euroblogosphere has diminished and, to a certain extent, been dissolved into a broader short-form social media conversation that's much more open.  It's a great thing that much more people are involved and active in the debate.

The fault-line of a pro-EU coalition versus anti-EU populism means, however, that such debates have not yet shifted in the direction we may have wished for.  The Spitzenkandidaten are not under much scrutiny and campaigns are largely Europeanised national campaigns rather than campaigns on European issues, such as the Euro, with national characteristics and flavour.  Rather than building a community that bridges the gaps between citizens, institutions and national media, citizens and national media have begun to engage more with "Europe".  While the increase in support of EU membership and (potential) mobilisation in defence of the basic ideals of the EU and its institutions is welcome, I worry that without the creativity of conservatives, liberals, social democrats and Greens putting forward new ideas in a way that captures the public imagination and fashions real change, the rallying cry in defence of Europe could fade away without generating anything constructive of its own (as the institutions themselves rarely figure in these debates).  That said, with so many new people joining the debate in new ways and taking another look at the world and continent around them, I think we can be optimistic that new and better debates and ideas will emerge.

Personally, I blogged because I was interested in the subject, liked writing, and was proud to be part of such an active and thoughtful community.  It's something that I've learned a lot from and that gave me the opportunity to meet may fantastic people - and I still believe there's a certain value in engaging with people in a long-form format that (hopefully) stretches your thinking.  With European issues so mainstream and with little time to invest in writing amount more niche European issues, I don't feel as great as need to write about the EU as I once did, but I hope to blog more again in the future from time-to-time.

"The European Citizen" - Four Today!

The European Citizen has been going for four years today! So, with the New Year just starting, what better time to have a look back at 2012? And what a year it was: fiscal treaties, continuing crisis, rows over the rule of law and national grandstanding - plus a Nobel Prize.

2012 started off with an explosion of blogging activity aimed at the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán and its constitutional changes. Later on in the year, Romania hit the headlines for its power struggle between the President and Prime Minister (though it didn't generate as much online column inches on the Euroblogosphere). The continuing problems around the rule of law in the Member States led to a Justice Scorecard being set up; hopefully 2013 won't be as contentious for the rule of law.

Last year also saw the strangest treaty detour the EU has ever undergone (and techincally hasn't, since the Fiscal Treaty is outside the EU). Not designed to solve the current problems and pretty much law already (and not exactly good for political stability either), I had many complaints about this counter-productive waste of time and political capital, though I reluctantly supported a Yes vote in the Irish referendum. The whole idea of building a grand Eurozone bargain seemed to be hinted at, but the continuing grandstanding and reversals of negotiations have poured a lot of poison into EU summitry and lost opportunities to set the Eurozone on at least the way to the right track.

It was a good year for the European Parliament, with the ACTA treaty shot down following widespread protests in Europe over the treaty. However the acceptance of the EU-US PNR agreement - followed later by the realisation that the US is not holding up its end of the bargain - has meant that it hasn't been all good for MEPs. Legislation for a European PNR regime and plans for a SWIFT system means that the EU is continuing its anti-crime and terrorism policy in an illiberal way. On the economic front the EP is trying to flex some political muscle over the 2-Pack and with some reports and proposals of its own, but it hasn't been able to build a strong public profile on the subject yet.

The Commission had a mixed year - Reding was the stand-out Commissioner, delivering a draft data protection law and pushing for gender equality quotas for boardrooms (though the latter was eventually watered down). Commissioner Dali, on the other hand, was pushed out of the Commission in controversial circumstances under allegations of awareness of dodgy deals.

On the more theoretical side of things, I've debated the European "F-word" and about the left (or UK Labour) and the EU. This has spilled over on to the UK In-or-Out-or-Renegotiate debate, with arguments that the internal market is a political project and that there's a basic social contract to the EU.

We're now 18 months away from the next European elections in 2014. We've had elections in France and the Netherlands this year, and I've covered the PES Congress as well as a Relaunching Europe event on Youth Unemployment, but I'll try to focus more on the party political bent of the Parliament as well as its legislative output in the run up to the first Europe-wide election since the Eurozone crisis really blew up in our faces.

Have a great 2013 and thanks for reading!

Bloggingportal.eu reaches the 1000 Euroblog mark!

Bloggingportal.eu, a Euroblog aggregation site that I'm a voluntary editor for (one of many), now aggregates 1,005 Euroblogs.

It's not only a good sign for Bloggingportal.eu, but also shows healthy growth in the Euroblogosphere and online debate on the EU and European politics.

A few comments on Euroblogging

Polscieu has written many interesting posts on the state of the Euroblogosphere from the lack of linking between blogs to the language barrier when it comes to reaching wider audiences. These are big issues that surface from time to time – I was amongst a few bloggers who tried to make a bigger commitment to communicating across the Blogosphere borders (between national blogospheres) and linguistic borders.

It was a failure, as Polscieu has rightly pointed out a lack of linking and cross-language debates. The natural question to ask is how can we solve these problems? I have to admit that I’ve always been a bit sceptical about blogging and its power, and I don’t think there’s any solution that can be advocated that would solve these issues simply because you come up against the Blogger. (For clarity, I’m not attacking Polscieu on these points since he was being analytical and not really suggesting actions, but what he wrote provoked me to think “yes, but...” a few times and an impression I have that there can [from several directions] be a general assumption about the Euroblogosphere’s “duty” to create a public space).

Time

Say you know a lot about the EU. You know how laws are made (and what laws the EU can make), and have a vague idea about the headline national interests of the Member States (the UK doesn’t want certain financial regulation, for example). Are you going to read up on the progress of a law, the different interests and political faction views involved, then the different linguistic and national responses to the law (either press or blogging-wise) before writing a post? And perhaps translate the post or leave comments on the blogs you cited to alert them to your post in their original languages? It’s a bit of an exaggeration – not all these steps are necessary, and it could be a response to a press article – but for there to be links generated, there needs to be some level of wide-reading and the ability to be authoritative enough to encourage reactions to your post.

There are a lot of people who are good at languages and know about the EU, but this type of blogging is limited because of the time it consumes.

Structure

 (Probably not the best subtitle). My recent impression of the Euroblogosphere is that it’s grown, increased in quality, and become more niche and technical. Perhaps my impression is wrong, and there is simply a growth in blog numbers so I’ve just picked up on the number of niche topics now, but it does seem that as the mass media have become better at explaining the EU, Euroblogs have become more focused on certain areas of policy making, which lessens contact with national blogospheres (it’s harder to keep in contact so that when you do write something at a topical time, they’re aware of you). It may be that due to the financial crisis and the better coverage of the EU in the mass media, Eurobloggers have been put off writing in a more generalist way, since they are put off reading and reproducing views on issues that are already well covered.

In any case, apart from this, the topics at the EU level still do not have identifiable actors for national audiences that Euroblogs’ more Europeanised narrative can compete with the narrative of national interests and summitry. National mass media remains the gatekeeper in terms of readership and the narrative-setter for readers who read and write in the Euroblogosphere. This means that issues are only of interest in a national blogosphere/media when they cross national interests or the interests of national actors, and only cross linguistic barriers to a great degree when it crosses several national interests or a fundamental general interest such as human rights. For day-to-day work in the Bubble, there are a lot of political victories and defeats, but little market in readers for them. Even Euroblogs are – comparatively - more orientated towards national responses to issues, with not so much “screen time” for parliamentary battles.

But I think that national Blogospheres are taking up EU issues and politics more now, and national mass media might slowly focus more clearly on EU actors and issues (I agree that the next Euroelections could be big). The main point, however, is that these structural issues in the national media, personality politics in the Brussels Bubble, and the Europeanisation of national Blogospheres will lead to a change in the Euroblogosphere and heighten its effect and relevance, and that there is little that Eurobloggers can “do” as such to hasten that.

Growth

Growth in the Euroblogosphere will help solve a lot of these issues, as you will have more bloggers, and a greater likelihood of crossover of stories. However the development of traditional mass media in the EU will be key in driving people into EU blogging (to a lesser degree) and increasing cross-EU blogging links (to a greater degree) as more European issues become of more interest to a general EU public. The Euroblogosphere will be important in examining EU politics and providing a great platform of public debate and policy analysis, but I feel that the ‘sphere operates via the individual, and the direction of the ‘sphere will be a reaction to trends in mass media as bloggers decide what is worth blogging about and how many borders they cross.

Conclusion

I wrote this mainly because I feel there’s a bit of a general attitude surrounding the Euroblogosphere that it has the potential to drive a European public sphere, and I simply don’t think it can. Such a public sphere will probably develop partly through the Europeanisation of national mass media, and the greater personalisation or European politics which will feed into a bigger and better ‘sphere. I doubt that we can be the barrier-busting force that some seem disappointed in us for not being, since at the individual level the effort, organisation and dedication needed over a long period of time and across a great number of people is simply unrealistic.

I may not believe in blogging’s ability to break down barriers and create a European public sphere, but I firmly believe in blogging as a vibrant part of that public sphere. Blogging, I think, is a great way to become involved, and to learn by being involved, and that other ways, such as party or civil society organisation membership, are an aspect of being an engaged citizen, which is personally and publically enriching.

We need to start paying more attention to the European Parliament

I don't think I can say it any more clearly than the title: we really do need to start paying more attention to the European Parliament. Every so often there's a blog article about how the European Parliament is no longer a talking shop, but a strong co-legislator with the Council, usually citing as an example the Parliament's rejection of the first SWIFT Treaty as evidence. It's true, but though the idea that the European Parliament is more powerful now seems to have caught on a bit more, there's no real debate on what Parliament does, and it's a real failing of our media and a lost opportunity.

What do I mean? Well, the Fiscal Stability Treaty that everyone's discussing now makes hardly any changes to the current state of EU law, given that the European Parliament passed around 90% of it last year. These are big issues on how we run our Eurozone economy that we have been debating for the last two years, not a sudden report of this or that treaty* - legislation supposed to help deal with the economic crisis! They are already having an effect nationally and in national politics. And yet there has been little public debate on this until the treaty, and little attempt by the public to use the Parliament as a means to influence EU policy and law.

That's the most damaging part of this: we're not using the European Parliament to its half potential, never mind it's full potential. It's supposed to be there to represent us. There are issues with the distance between the EU institutions and the public, but I'm not satisfied with the attitude that the institutions should bring themselves closer to us - we should be demanding and dragging them closer to us, and calling them on what they get wrong. Our media has improved its coverage of the EU for the economic crisis - a lot of it has been extremely good - but it's missing out on how decisions are being made by focusing on the European Council and all the summits. These are important, but European politics should not be a spectator sport: we need to let the Parliament know that we're demanding participants.



*The European Parliament does deal with lots of security issues - like surveilliance of air travel through the PNR system, which is still going through Parliament.

Europa site

There's a great new site on The Guardian: Europa. It's a joint project with a few other European newspapers to tackle European affairs. Hopefully it will generate some good analysis and debate on what's going on - and help us to debate a bit more across borders. The article on the EU budget is good, though I hope it moves on from the articles on stereotypes to more, well, news.

Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Happy Birthday Bloggingportal.eu!

The EU blog aggregating website Bloggingportal.eu is 3 tomorrow. Since it was launched the number of blogs being aggregated has ballooned to 904, with over 250 posts being generated over the past week. The Euroblogosphere is definitely more vibrant than when Bloggingportal started out, and Bloggingportal is still the top aggregation site for EU blogs - I'm not aware of any others.

I've been a voluntary editor with Bloggingportal for much of the last 3 years (it's been around 2 1/2 years now) - it's only staffed by volunteer Eurobloggers, and it's very much reflected in how the site's operated. The layout and look of the website hasn't changed much, though there's been lots of discussion about changing this and adding functionality, progress has been limited by the voluntary nature of the site, the small number of editors with the magical combination of free time and technical know-how, and the problems with coming up with a way of reconciling the need for a different role structure (at least partially) to make Bloggingportal.eu more useful with the dependence of the site on the motivation and goodwill of sufficient editors.

That said, Bloggingportal has become a focal point in the Euroblogosphere, with the Hungarian Presidency opening the presidency up more to Bloggingportal and the Euroblogosphere in general (when we had launched a blog action against the Hungarian media law), and editor's picks being linked to by the Guardian's CiF Europe site. Perhaps unsurprisingly for bloggers, we've been most successful with doing, well, blogging stuff on Bloggingportal - the "Week in Bloggingportal" posts that summarise what's been going on in the EU according to the editor's picks, and the blogging actions (like the action over the European Citizens' Initiative) are still where there is the most editor engagement and where Bloggingportal positively interacts with the Euroblogosphere.

The scope for positive engagement with the rest of the Euroblogosphere is extremely limited, as we try to remain neutral and to separate out what we do in our blogs (and what we might want to do in common through our blogs) and what is right for Bloggingportal's independent position. (Do you think we've managed to maintain Bloggingportal as a neutral aggregation site for the Euroblogosphere?) But we've also hosted physical events (such as an event in London in December 2010), and represented Bloggingportal at other blogging events. I think these physical meetings are important, particularly given the diverse and geographically spread nature of Euroblogging (though a lot of editors tend to end up in the London-Brussels-Berlin triangle at some point), which would encourage a feeling of community that would help sustain citizen blogging and can build more connections (I agree with Mathew Lowry that specialist blogs will be a fundamental part of a Euroblogosphere, but I think that non-specialist, citizen blogs are the connective tissue between them, or should be).

So we need to be more connective: connecting more blogs and bloggers online through offering a site that provides easy access to specialist Euroblogs and that has some limited level of real world presence that provides a small social boost to those outside the Brussels Bubble. Achieving any of this to even a modest level would require a lot of changes, though, and Bloggingportal changes slowly: it's a bit surprising that the rapidly changing Euroblogosphere hasn't been able to evolve anything better so far, so maybe we can work something out.

What do you want from Bloggingportal.eu? What would make you want to use it more?

"The European Citizen" - Three Today!

The European Citizen has now been going for three years! This year has been the quietest so far on the blog, even if it's been packed full of crises in the real world. Still, some of 2011 in the EU has been reflected here.

First, there was the long-awaited Irish election as the government collapsed over the need to go to the EU and IMF for loans to keep the country running. Along with Stephen Spillane, I helped follow it here and on MSN.ie with a blogging round-up series. The new governing parties have come up with a lot of constitutional reform ideas, and with the new constitutional convention coming up this year, delivery will be a key issue. Internationally, the EU was taken by surprise (like everyone else) by the Arab spring.

In the UK one of the most memorable debates was over prisoners' voting rights and (suggested from some quarters) withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. I backed the loosing side in the AV referendum in April: British ethusiasm for First Past the Post is still confusing for me, though perhaps I just grew up in a different political atmosphere (Northern Ireland/Ireland), where the (proportional) Single Transferable Vote would have to be pried from voters' cold, dead hands (what voter would want to give up the power proportional representation gave them?). I also blogged about the debate on parliamentary sovereignty in the UK Parliament and what the difference is between a free trade area and the common market. But then it's sometimes hard to understand what kind of Free Trade the Tories believe in...

Citizenship was a big issue legally in the Court of Justice in Luxembourg - with the Zambrano case promising a new approach, before the law was cruelly reversed (if it ever had been changed) in McCarthy. This was probably the most legal I got all year! Old, more political chestnuts returned, like debates on European democracy and the values of referendums on the EU.

Barroso delivered his Commissarial Speech in September, showing just how much the EPP have shifted leftwards (or at least, how far their leaders have) - this was perhaps symbolised by the revival of debate around a Financial Transaction Tax. I also followed the PES and attended their Re:New conference (You can read my posts here, here, and here).

The year's end highlighted the two central questions we'll face this year: how many member states will join together and integrate further (sparked by the UK's veto and it's effects), and what kind of Eurozone do we want - and how will the left respond to the New Fiscal Compact?

This year I hope to be a bit more active - it looks like there'll be plenty to cover.

Hope you've a good 2012!

Barroso's Buzzword Bingo: 2011 Edition

It's that time of year again, with Barroso's State of the [European] Union address. At 9:00 a.m. CET on Wednesday this week, Barroso will make his speech to the European Parliament, setting out his vision (or lack thereof) of the future of the still-crisis-stricken Union.

Last year we ran a Barroso Buzzword Bingo over at Bloggingportal, and this blog is joining in for this year's round. To play the game, you pick 10 words or phrases that you think will pop up in the speech, and once you've got them all - bingo! You can watch the speech live here, and comment on Twitter with us (and the new official State of the Union Twitter account) using the #SOTEU hashtag. Let's hope an MEP playing along will shout out bingo in plenary.


Here's my list:

1. Solidarity.
2. Robust action.
3. Economic crisis.
4. Fiscal convergence.
5. Security.
6. Competitiveness.
7. European Added Value.
8. Community Method.
9. Innovative.
10. Federalism/Federal (a risky one, but it might be a way of trying to get some national press attention).

You can add your own list over at Bloggingportal (& in the comments below!) - if you need inspiration, Jon Worth and Polscieu have already written theirs.

Back from the Grave

Don't worry - I'm not dead! Things have been very busy over the last month and a half, so The European Citizen has gone a bit quiet. I'm hoping to revive the blog and use it more regularly from now on.

I'm not sure how smooth the process will be, since the next few weeks will still be pretty busy, but I hope to squeeze in a few blog posts each week.

Irish Election Blog Round-Up #10

Or at least I think it's #10 - it's hard to keep track!

Another day, another debate, but the first debate between the big 3 – as Gaelige – will broadcast later, so we’ll have to wait for the next rash of post-debate analysis. Meanwhile, there are plenty of competing viewpoints in the blogosphere, particularly between those who believe we have the political clout for renegotiation, and those who a rapidly concluding that the parties won’t be in any position to renegotiate.

Social questions are getting more of an airing online than in the debates so far. Maman Poulet takes a look at how the parties’ manifestos deal with LGBT issues and Jason O’Mahony asks the question: what will Fine Gael’s social values be in a single-party government?

With Labour not doing as well as they expected in the polls, Eoin O’Malley tries to answer the conundrum: What’s gone wrong for Labour? Fianna Fáil may have dropped historically low in the polls, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t attracting a new electoral base...

Finally, more talk about tax, with Fine Gael proposing a tax on “content” instead of a TV licence.

If you have any tips on election blogs or posts, you can contact myself or Stephen on Twitter via @EuropeanCitizen and @Spiller2.

"The European Citizen" - Two Today!

The European Citizen is two years old today! It's been another big year of crises for Europe, and the first full year of the Lisbon Treaty being in force.

Blogging-wise, this year has been a bit more quiet than the first - I still don't know how I reached the 234 article mark in 2009! Still, it's been quite eventual. I somehow managed to win a short essay competition on communicating Europe, taken part in an International Criminal Court mooting competition, represented the S&D group for Romania in the Model European Union 2010 and wrote about My Europe Day as part of My Europe Week. 2010 was the year the question was raised: should bloggers be accredited to have greater access to European institutions, and, if so, on what criteria?

Civil and human rights remain important issues in Europe, whether it's banning veils, deporting Roma, access to abortion, or freedom of the press.

While the nature of blogging and blogging's place in society is still a big debate, including difficult questions over influence, I've tried to do something useful with this blog by analysing the records of the Northern Irish MEPs in their first year of this Parliament, taking a look at Barroso's big speech, and by covering the Oireachtas's (Irish Parliament's) report on how it could deal better with EU affairs. Although I also tried to compile strange EU rhetoric definitions, so it probably cancels out.

2010 saw a return of the old favourites of EU debate, what is the EU for, and what do the statistics mean? In August I moved to the Netherlands, so I took a look at the Dutch government's outlook on the EU. I was also lucky enough to be part of a trip around EU institutions and other international organisations in Europe, and the influence of the EU versus other organisations and the European Parliament is becoming more apparent.

For the next year, I'll try to continue writing about some other organisations, follow the Irish elections, and reach out to other Euroblogs and national blogs. As a co-editor of Bloggingportal.eu - which organised the great #EUuk event - I'm enthusiastic about the upcoming year, and it's bound to throw up some interesting events and it will remain the hub of the Euroblogosphere.

Thanks for reading!

#EUuk: EU, media and blogging in Britain

Last month I attended Bloggingportal's #EUuk event, on the EU in the British media and the British blogosphere. The first panel's topic was how the British media deals with the EU, and the second covered the British blogosphere and blogging about the EU in general.

FIRST PANEL – “The EU in the British Media”

PANELISTS:

David Rennie – Political Editor and Bagehot Columnist, The Economist, Bagehot’s Notebook
Paul Staines – Blogger, Guido Fawkes
Mats Persson – Director, Open Europe
J Clive Matthews – Blogger, Nosemonkey’s EUtopia


SECOND PANEL – “The EU in the British Blogosphere”

PANELISTS:

Bruno Waterfield – Brussels Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph, Europe not EU
Gawain Towler – UKIP / Europe of Freedom and Democracy Press Officer and Blogger, England Expects
Sunny Hundal – Blogger, Liberal Conspiracy, Pickled Politics
Jon Worth – Blogger, Jon Worth’s Euroblog

The first panel (now on YouTube; first part here), was interesting, though it was a pity that David Rennie couldn't stay that long, as he was very critical of the British press generally, and had a few interesting angles, that would have been worthwhile exploring further. On the central question, the themes would be very familiar to anyone who's been writing or reading euroblogs for any length of time: the lack of interesting news to report in the first place. In the UK this is compounded by bad reporting in the press, spreading information that's patently untrue (such as on nursing, and on selling eggs by the dozen). Different issues were raised: the EU needs more personalities, there should be a simpler way of communicating with the EU (the separate departments [DGs] mean slow communication and reaction to the press), and (perhaps) better standards in the press (this last one I'm implying from the discussion of the media's treatment of EU subjects).

Personalities are probably the way forward, but it's hard to see anything that could be done about it in the short term. The new media strategy of the Commission, for instance, is supposed to focus on Barroso - yet Barroso is less visible and present in the media than Van Rompuy or Lady Ashton. And this is during the greatest economic crisis and challenge to the Euro, when ideas of fiscal union are in the air. The attention remains on the Member States, specifically France and Germany - which is no bad thing, as the Member States are extremely important. However, it does led to a lazy toting up of approximate national interests to calculate who "won" and who "lost", instead of facing the key questions of what should be done about the Eurozone (and what the alternatives are). Though the Europarties have done some policy work, little attention is paid to them, and they haven't been tested, simply because nobody believes they can do anything, despite the activism of the EP this year. It probably won't be until there are campaigns during EP elections based on the Commission President they'd elect, will it matter what policies or personalities there are, and what the wider debates might be.

Perhaps the Euroblogosphere, and national blogospheres could help uncover some of the choices for the next election (and debate what should be done now!), but this goes back to the idea in the middle of last year that there should be more interaction between Eurobloggers and national bloggers - hopefully this event (and future ones) will help on building up links.

So I'll try and do more to boost links - and as a reminder, I welcome comments in other languages on this blog.

The second panel (also on YouTube - the first part is here) was a brilliant debate on blogging generally, and on the EU. One of the main themes that developed, was that blogging and mainstream media journalism are increasingly converging, with journalists occupying more dominant positions in the blogosphere(s), and acting more like bloggers. The role of bloggers was also explored, and there was disappointment from some (Bruno) that bloggers didn't seem to be reaching their full potential in reporting on and exploring issues like the financial crisis and Irish bail out. For others (like Jon Worth) blogging was about adding your voice to a debate when you have something to contribute, and it wasn't up to bloggers to write about areas that are being covered well enough in the mainstream media. I've a lot of sympathy for this view - the main reason I didn't blog much about the Irish bail out was my lack of an economic background (I hope to read up more on economics and to blog more about it soon). Still, blogging is a great educational experience, and I hope it encourages more people to inform themselves and to form an opinion on matters so they can add to the debate. The future of the media and blogging after the Wikileaks Cablegate was also briefly discussed.

I was presently surprised to get a great plug from Telegraph journalist Bruno Waterfield (Part 5, 1:05-1:50):

“One of the reasons why Conor’s blog is worth reading is because he situates... his blogging in wider constitutional debates about sovereignty/shared sovereignty... It’s not usually polemical – it doesn’t have to be – but it’s interesting to read the EU through a much more reflective, much more considered prism about what should politics mean in the 21st Century.”

So cheers, Bruno!

[Thanks to the Commission Representation in the UK for allowing use of Europe House for the event, and to Mia and Joe for chairing the panels].

Blog Action against Hungarian Media Law

Bloggingportal.eu has called for a Blog Action against the new media law that will come into force in Hungary on January 1st. Hungary will assume the rotating presidency of the Council for the next 6 months, and has set up a presidency blog, so it is a great time for the Euroblogosphere (and national blogospheres) to highlight the dangers to press freedom, and to push for the law's repeal.

You can find the OSCE's damning assessment of the legislation here: PDF.

OSCE Report:

"They will introduce a highly centralized governance and regulatory system, with many new and unnecessary bodies of oversight and supervision and with many decision-making processes involving a succession of inputs by disparate bodies – probably breeding conflicts and inefficiencies, but also multiplying opportunities for political control. The whole system may have a serious chilling effect on media freedom and independence ((by encouraging selfcensorship) and on the exercise of freedom of expression.

[...]

The new institutional framework may, if deliberately (mis)used for this purpose, create conditions for the realization of the “winner-takes-most” or indeed “winner-takes-all” scenario in the current term of Parliament, in defiance of the principle of the division of powers and of the checks and balances typical of liberal democracy. As such, the design of this framework runs directly counter to democratic standards in the field of media system organization and governance. Accordingly, this package, which exceeds what is justified and necessary in a democratic society, is cause for very serious concern."

The legislation covers traditional and internet media, though the OSCE report fears that the legislation is framed so all internet content could conceiveably be covered by the law. In any case, the law will change the media landscape in Hungary significantly, by bringing in content regulation where previously the content itself had been "virtually free" of, and which is "without precident in democratic countries" (page 6 of the report PDF). The legislation will set up a National Media and Telecommunications Authority, which the Hungarian government will be able to appoint officials to, and will oversee media (including group blogs) in Hungary, without the national parliament being able to form a adequate check on the government:

"...the manner of appointment of the Media Council Chairperson
amounts to nothing less than government capture of Parliament. Parliament is left no choice but to vote for the Prime Minister’s candidate. Moreover, should it fail to elect that person, its decision will be disregarded in the sense that the President would still chair meetings of the Media Council (with a voice, but not a vote) and the only option left to Parliament would be eventually to elect that same person to this position – or leave the position unfilled, thus considerably weakening the MC. This is very likely if the governing party/coalition does not have a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Then, the solution designed to promote the development of consensus on the chairmanship of the MC could easily turn into an opportunity for obstruction by opposition parties."

Group blogs are another issue, as in Hungary group blogging is popular. As blogs can be fined if they are "edited" or written by several people, this could have a chilling effect on blogging in Hungary, where people are afraid of blogging together and risking suffering for what other people write. Mathew Lowry has written about this over on his blog.

I won't go into the law in greater detail (other blogs and the OSCE have done a good job - the OSCE Report is 57 pages long, after all!), but the vagueness of "appropriate" information, the vagueness of the idea of content and the political nature of appointments are a threat to freedom of the press and to blogging, so I would encourage everyone to join in with the Blogging Action, and raise awareness through blogs and Tweeting. Though the Presidency has argued that this is a purely national matter, and the presidency shouldn't be "hijacked" by it, but the freedom of the media is fundamental to democracy, and we should be concerned about such laws taking root in other countries. Not only is it a question of how we can ensure the same standards of rights, openness and democracy in Member States after they've joined the EU, but just as the presidency used the argument that none of the measures were not found in other Member States, tolerating the erosion of rights in one Member State makes it easier for such erosion to spread.

Stanley Crossick: Rest in Peace

I have just learnt from Twitter and Stanley's blog, that he passed away on the 20th. My condolences to his family; I'm sure that he will be greatly missed. Though I only know of Stanley through reading his blog, I'll miss him from the Euroblogosphere, and I hope that he will rest in peace.

Eux.Tv tweeted this video of Stanley Crossick, and I thought I would post it here:

The European Citizen: One of the most influential left-of-centre Euroblogs?

It turns out that The European Citizen has been nominated for a poll of the most influential left-of-centre Euroblogs in a Social Europe Journal poll. If you like the blog, and think I've been suitably left-of-centre enough, you can for me and 2 others (or even, theoretically, 3 blogs which aren't The European Citizen) here. The vote is open to 5pm tomorrow.

The (reader nominated) shortlist is 18 nominations long - I'm not entirely sure if that's due to the small size of the left-of-centre Euroblogosphere or the lack of nominations. I'm also not sure if I'm that "influential" (I've never even received a reply to the closest I've come to direct engagement with the EU instituions - though I wasn't really angling for a direct reply - and I doubt any shadowy Bilderbergers or Buchgemeinschaft der schwaebische Hausfrauen members read my blog). Nonetheless it's nice to be nominated.



UPDATE: Here are the results. I came in joint 9th place with the European Tribune. Thanks to those who voted for me!

Siehst du mal gern la télévision?

Es gibt zwei Grunde, warum ich moechte, andere Sprachen zu sprechen. Wenn man eine andere Sprache lernt, entdeckt man natuerlich eine andere Kultur – man kann andere Musik, Geschichte und historische Perspektiven, und vielleicht noch Essen besser erleben. Und man kann fremde Sendungen sehen.

Ich liebe, Sendungen auf anderen Sprachen zu sehen; sogar Sendungen, die ich wahrscheinlich nicht sehen moechte, wenn es auf Englisch waere. Sie sind Kuriositaeten oder Raetseln, die mir einladen, sie zu verstehen. Obwohl das wahrscheinlich einen geschwollen Grund ist, Familien im Brennpunkt zu sehen. Oder Das Familiengericht (das nicht so informierend ueber deutsche Jura ist!).

Sendungen wie Familien im Brennpukt oder Das Familiengericht sind vielleicht nicht gute Beispiele, aber es gibt Sendungen, die interessanter sind. Manchmal sendet irische Kanale Filme auf Deutsch, Franzoesisch, Spanisch, Daenisch, usw., und man bekommt Geschichte ueber grosse und kleine Themen, in unterschiedlichen Stilen. Es gibt anderseits Sendungen, die ganz bekannt scheint in ihrer Stil oder Thema, aber sie sind so gut gemacht, wie (die schwedische Sendung) “Wallander”. Es wird manchmal von BBC Four mit Untertiteln gesendet, und es hat mehr Qualitaet als der BBCs eigenen Wallander. Englisch wird durch amerikanischen und britischen Sendungen und Filme gefoerdert; andere europaeische Sprachen waeren besser bekannt und besser gelernt, wenn es mehr Sendungen auf anderen Sprachen in anderen Laender sind.

Besonders intrigierend sind die Komoedien. Komoedien erzaehlt man etwas mehr ueber andere Laender, aber solche Sendungen sind sehr schwer zu verstehen. Sie sind vielleicht die grossten Raetseln, aber sie sind auch – hoffentlich – sehr lohnend. Ich moechte noch wissen, was der M. Sarkozy der “Les Guignols” gerade gesagt hat! Aber wird Sarkozy noch ein Thema sein, wenn ich genug Franzoesisch weiss? Ich soll fleissiger daran arbeiten...

Kannst du gute Deutsche Sendungen (oder Sendungen auf andere Sprachen) empfehlen?

Quick Note on Comments

There's been a lot of spam being posted in the comments to the blog posts, so I'm going to start monitoring/approving comments so I don't have to go back through the archives finding and deleting spam.

Opening Up My Euroblogging: Language and Linking

I've been inspired by Mathew Lowry and Ralf Grahn to open up my Euroblogging and to try and reach out a bit more across the blogosphere(s).

The debate on the French Euroblogosphere (see Europasionaria) prompted Grahnlaw to introduce a policy on languages and comments on his blog - Ralf wants to promote greater connections by having a greater number of "commenting" languages available. Cracking open the linguistic barriers is one of the greatest obstacles to growing and connecting the Euroblogosphere and it's a great initiative to have to start welcoming more comments and debate in different languages. So I'm going to do the same for my blog. My linguistic ability only really extends to German (with a smattering of very, very basic French), so I will also rely on machine translation to help with responding.

Another side to this is commenting on other Euroblogs in different languages. Machine translation will be my (contrary) companion here, as the German Euroblogosphere seems to be very small. I'm not sure how bloggers will react to having strangely worded comments marring their blogs, but I'll try and bluster my way through. I have been following some non-English Euroblogs, though the number is quite small - hopefully by diving deeper across linguistic barriers will unearth some blogging treasures.

Finally, I need to start reaching out across national barriers (the second great divide that afflicts the Euroblogosphere). Earlier this week I wrote a mini-series on the Northern Irish MEPs, and I tried to make it neutral (given the divide in NI) and I tried to provide a context for those who aren't as familiar with the European Parliament. As far as I can tell, no Northern Ireland-based blogger picked up on what I wrote. Now this is fair enough - my writing style is a bit drawn-out and slightly academic (tips on how to blog better are welcome in the comments, by the way) - but there is no real debate on the NI MEPs in the NI blogosphere between elections, as far as I can tell.

This post is mainly about me trying to push myself to blog better and to cross barriers that I haven't found the time to in the past (I find blogging time-consuming, and comments take up time = particularly if you want to comment on several blogs). I haven't commented on NI, Irish and UK blogs that much, so I haven't been developing those relations between the blogospheres. It can be hard to know when to "speak", in that Europolitics rarely crops up in the NI blogosphere (though I've undoubtedly missed opportunities). So the lesson for me is: make more comments.

Mathew Lowry's post on making bridges and specialist bloggers in the Euroblogosphere makes me think there are 3 things the Euroblogosphere needs to do:

1. Grow! Bloggingportal.eu is up to 630 Euroblogs, so the Euroblogosphere is already growing quickly. New Eurobloggers are needed to replace those, like Julian Frisch, who have dropped out. A bigger Euroblogosphere will be better placed to make the connections between languages and national Blogospheres and support and encourage the growth of specialist Eurobloggers.

2. Reach out between linguistic barriers by commenting. This will help broaden debate and increase the impact of everyone's posts - after all, on European topics, if they're interesting, they deserve to be discussed across the Euroblogosphere.

3. Reach out across national Blogosphere lines (in my case, NI, Ireland and the UK). This will widen the debates and increase the influence of Euroblogging (and hopefully spur a greater interest in European politics (both in itself and in holding MEPs, etc. to account).

It may be a bad time for me to commit to this (I'll be a bit quite over the next few weeks), but I'll try to work at it and make it part of my routine.

And apologies to everyone who doesn't blog (but you should try(!)) and is a bit tired of the self-referential Euroblogging of the past few weeks!

I've an influence of 49.17 and I'm not afraid to use it!

According to the Waggener Edstrom report, I'm the 22nd most influential blogger (15th in the EU General section) with an influence of 49.17 (PDF via Jon Worth, the 5th most influential). It's flattering, in a way, but I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to mean - I honestly doubt that I influence the opinion of other bloggers that much and insiders of the Brussels Bubble less so, so it's hard to escape the feeling that the sums have gone wrong somewhere. Especially since it only included English language blogs (an seemingly not even those which blog in several languages, including English...).

Eurogoblin has torn into the report and has raised serious questions over the methodology of the report. A key symptom of the is the placing of "The Digger" in third place, despite the low number of posts. Mathew Lowry is a bit more gentle - citing it as at least an attempt to understand the Euroblogosphere more - though still critical. I think Waggener Edstrom deserve some credit for trying to create a ranking system (measuring influence is probably a hard thing to get right in an overall sense given the wide range of issues and audiences that the EU is composed of), but I agree with Eurogoblin's critical analysis of the methodology.

Meanwhile, Europasionaria is picking up on the French Euroblogosphere's debate on its reach and influence, and I think she's right when she approaches the question of influence (or appeal of the Euroblogosphere) as a need to be more broad in outlook to draw in more people and to spark more interest in the EU and the political side of Europe (meaning the day-to-day issues rather than solely the integration question). I know that I tend to be drawn to blogs that have broader ranges of topics (though I do have a specialist interest in the law and Blawgs as well), and I think this hits on a fundamental rule of the internet: people generally just look up what they're interested in. So for the European institutions this means that accessibility of information is the key (so it can be useful and "on hand" for people who need it, and is more likely to be examined and picked up on by the media and bloggers), while for bloggers, a broadness of touch is an advantage unless you want to focus on more specialised blogging.

In the end, though, blogging is a personal hobby, and the way the Euroblogosphere is now probably accurately reflects the people behind it. Finding new blogs, promoting them and encouraging a wider and broader 'sphere is key, and a big part of the mission of Bloggingportal.eu. Europaeum has come up with a new hashtag to help the promotion and discovery of new Euroblogs: #bkae "Better Know a Euroblog". It'd be great to get this hashtag up and running and promote new Euroblogs and submit them to Bloggingportal.eu so they can reach a wider audience.