Euro crisis and euroblogs on Bloggingportal

The euro is the currency of 332 million people, more than the home of the United States dollar (about 313 million). The severe euro crisis affects not only the 17 countries of the eurozone, but the economic prospects in the whole European Union (population 502 million) and beyond, actually the world economy.

We have seen the leaders of the eurozone and EU countries struggling to find credible intergovernmental solutions to European level problems. Another week of high level meetings is about to begin, without clear and comprehensive proposals for all to see.

Small wonder that the crises in the euro area, which turned into the crisis of the euro itself, have spawned cross-border discussion on an unprecedented scale. Euroblogs are among the movers in the emerging European public sphere, where common challenges and shortcomings are recorded and evaluated above the level of national politics.

Increasingly Europeans realise that they are in the same boat, although some design the improved vessels for the future, some recall scrapped luxury liners of past glory, some see the Titanic fatally heading towards the iceberg (while deck-chairs are being arranged) and some remind us of the harsh and unjust treatment (austerity) which led to the Mutiny on the Bounty.

The euro crisis and other European questions are treated in the new blog posts which are aggregated on multilingual Bloggingportal.eu. At this moment 887 euroblogs are listed, although not all of them remain active. During the last seven days 256 blogs published at least one post, but some blogs produce several entries each week.

Somewhat erratically the voluntary editors of Bloggingportal select good blog posts for the front page, which sends them off to Twitter and includes them in the daily newsletter (email subscription).

There are RSS feeds for the editors' choice and for all new posts. You can propose a relevant blog post or a new blog dealing with EU affairs. You could also show community spirit by volunteering for the tagging and the selection of blog posts as an active editor of Bloggingportal.eu.

Most weeks the Bloggingportal.eu blog offers a roundup of the Week in Bloggingportal, with light comment on promoted posts.



Ralf Grahn

More Greek Dra(ch)ma

Forget about Alice in Wonderland when prime minister George Papandreou, starring the Greek Dra(ch)ma of domestic politics, overshadows the sideshow of the G20 leaders in Cannes. Markets around the world have barely stopped shaking.

The referendum surprise rabbit was stuffed back into the hat as quickly as it had been conjured up, but incredibly the magician Papandreou is still in office, intent on winning a vote of confidence tonight.

You can relive the surreal day of 3 November 2011 through the live blog of Athens News, the FT Eurozone crisis live blog, the CNBC summary of the day, the Reuters summary, the Spiegel Online International report, the Financial Times Deutschland summary (in German), just to name a few.

This morning again, the euro drama is spread on millions of breakfast tables (in paper or virtual form) and played out on millions of screens.

Few have ignited as much pan-European debate as George Papandreou. The euroblogger Ronny Patz - @ronpatz on Twitter – tweeted it like this:

After these weeks, nobody should complain anymore that there is no European Public Sphere. Everyone talks #eurozone & #greece.

What EU citizens lack are the democratic and robust institutions at European (eurozone) level, where the issues are. Only democracy and sufficient powers can end the tortuous and torturous road of failed attempts and half-measures.

In the meantime, tune in to the next episode.



Ralf Grahn

EU & USA: SWIFT agreement ─ Euroblogs and civil society

Is the proposed SWIFT financial data transfer agreement between the European Union and the United States of America an example of how civil society and Euroblogs take up important societal issues, where our governments are less than forthcoming?

I have not traced the matters to their roots, but I suspect that without active citizens and bloggers neither main stream media nor governments would have reacted. (Correct me if I am wrong.)



Before we see what happens Monday on the Swedish EU Council presidency watch, here are some examples of active Euroblogs, which at least have contributed to raising public awareness of privacy, data protection and fundamental rights concerns in relation to the SWIFT agreement.



Euroblogs


Netzpolitik.org



As far as I understand, Netzpolitik.org – a blog and platform for freedom and openness in the digital age – has been active in making the secretive SWIFT deal public. See, under the tag “swift”, for instance the following blog posts (in German). Without going back the whole way, here are some examples, including leaked documents and assessments of their quality:



SWIFT: Bundesregierung ist umgekippt (25 November 2009)



Geheimes Dokument zeigt die schmutzigen Tricks bei den SWIFT-Verhandlungen (24 November 2009)



Bundesregierung kippt bei SWIFT (24 November 2009)



Einigung bei Bankdatenübermittlung an die USA? (11 November 2009)



SWIFT-Debatte im EU-Parlament (16 September 2009)



Brussels Blogger




I was only vaguely aware of the SWIFT agreement preparations, until i read Brussels Blogger: SWIFT – EU to grant USA nearly unlimited access to all EU banking data (26 November 2009) and 5 reasons why the SWIFT deal is very bad for Europe (27 November 2009).


Julien Frisch took up the issue in EU to hand all banking details of Europeans to the US. A rapidly growing Facebook group demands that the deal is stopped.



Blogosphere


Now that I have noticed the shady procedure and less than forthright official communication about the proposed SWIFT deal, I have stumbled across other blog posts about the issue. Here are a few examples:



Zero Hedge, Marla Singer: Pull a SWIFT one (27 November 2009) refers to Brussels Blogger and notes that for the United States there is all take and no give.



Der Spiegelfechter: SWIFT-Abkommen – Showdown in Berlin (27 November 2009) alleges that the German federal government wanted to adopt the SWIFT agreement “soundlessly”, but unexpectedly the Bundesrat – the second chamber representing the Länder – has vetoed the accord, which requires unanimity between EU member state governments.




Ralphs Piratenblog: [PM] Geheime Tricks bei der Durchsetzung des SWIFT-Abkommens (26 November 2009) notes that the German Pirate Party is opposed to the agreement. As it is, through US based servers the United States have wider powers in Germany than the German security services. There are document references to Netzpolitik.


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We have seen active citizens stand up for open and democratic procedures and Euroblogs championing fundamental rights across national borders and language barriers.


In my humble view, there is an emerging Eurosphere, or European public sphere, despite the national media traditions and perspectives, and the pesky Euroblogosphere is a small, but growing part of it.

My own conclusion from the SWIFT agreement debacle would be the following wish to the EU institutions and public administrations in the member states: Be open to us and deal fairly; we will be more reasonable and trustful in return.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Do you find EUSSR myths fascinating? Are we EU citizens worth a better European Union? Educate yourself! There are already 487 Euroblogs aggregated on multilingual Bloggingportal.eu. You can access all the posts or concentrate on the editors’ choice. On most of the blogs you can comment and discuss our common European future.

Giant Panda and Eurosphere

Does the Giant Panda exist? It may be a conservation reliant endangered species, but few would doubt its existence.

How about the Eurosphere, aka European public sphere, or a small part of it, the Euroblogs?

Euroblogs exist: Bloggingportal.eu aggregates 487 of them.



Joe Litobarski does not doubt that there are Euroblogs, he just asks Where is the European Blogosphere? (26 November 2009). A key phrase from the discussion is "Can we look beyond our national audience?”.

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The Giant Panda needs conservation, the Euroblogs conversation. Both exist, but we need more of them.


Ralf Grahn



P.S. Do you find EUSSR myths fascinating? Are we EU citizens worth a better European Union? Educate yourself; there are already 487 Euroblogs aggregated on multilingual Bloggingportal.eu. On most of the blogs you can comment and discuss our common European future.