"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!