A few days ago Grahnlaw (in English) passed the mark of 1,400 blog posts published on European Union law and EU politics. The Lisbon Treaty has been at the core of the blog. During a long time, the legal changes, Article by Article, were at the centre. Lately, political questions regarding the ratification process and the implementation of reform treaty have been on top; the amending treaty finally enters into force 1 December 2009.
Grahnlaw can be described as a virtual library of EU law and politics, because the daily visitors do not only read the latest articles. Each day, readers access a few hundred different web pages with archived posts containing facts or opinion.
From very modest beginnings two and a half years ago, the number of visitors has kept rising steadily, except for the few months with no or with light blogging. About 95 per cent of the readers come from Europe and North America. Visitors with other languages than English represent between 40 and 50 per cent of the visitors.
The EU institutions, national administrations, media, organisations, businesses, educational and research institutions are represented among the visitors. Interested EU citizens are an important group of readers.
Because of spam comments, I felt that I had to start moderating, but civil comments on topic are much appreciated. General or off topic feedback can be given by email.
At a personal level, writing the blog is a learning experience, which serves my interest in a democratic future for the European Union, for the Lisbon Treaty is still very far from a federation based on the consent and political choices of the EU’s citizens.
Blogging is also training for speaking and lecturing engagements.
In addition, the Euroblogosphere offers me a sense of community with active EU citizens, across national borders and language barriers.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Do you find EUSSR myths fascinating? Are we EU citizens worth a better European Union? Read the Euroblogs aggregated on multilingual Bloggingportal.eu, and discuss our common European future.
Friday, 20 November 2009
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How do you explain that there are so many visitors from North America (most of them from the USA)? At least in my blog (if statistics don't lie) they are greatest part of the readers. Is it possible that they have greater interest in Europe (and its future) than the Europeans themselves?
ReplyDeleteP.S. You seem a bit obsessed by the term "EUSSR". But the blockheads which invented it are not worth it.
citizen of Europe,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure about the reasons for the North American visitors (roughly a fifth on Grahnlaw), but I guess that the English language is one, Europe (the EU) in studies of history and politics as well as law another, European students and researchers in the USA (and Canada) specialising in European issues a third. Media, including bloggers, may be a fourth group, and the European roots of US residents a fifth reason.
Congratulations! You are a great source...
ReplyDeleteErkan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the compliment. It flows both ways; I am an avid reader of your incredibly wide-ranging blog.