Migrating from Blogger – temporarily?

When I switched to the new Blogger (Google) profile, something strange happened. First on Eurooppaoikeus, then on Grahnblawg the breaks for new lines (paragraphs) in the article would disappear in the published post. I have tried to signal the problem, but as we see from the previous post here on Grahnlaw, the bug persists. Thus, I see no other option than to migrate to Grahnlaw Suomi Finland for the time being. My three blogs on Blogger remain as an archive with a total of more than 2,700 articles plus feeds with news about EU affairs. Sadly yours, Ralf Grahn

Grahnlaw among top ten political blogs in Finland

Cision Finland ranked the top ten political blogs in Finland according to their own algorithm. The tabloid Ilta-Sanomat picked up the news and the Green Party paper Vihreä lanka happily noted the strong showing of Green politicians.

The Green top duo Jyrki JJ Kasvi and Osmo Soininvaara was complemented by the Green minister Heidi Hautala in seventh place.

The justice minister Anna-Maja Henriksson came in third and Finland's EU and trade minister Alexander Stubb fifth.

I was astonished to find my English blog Grahnlaw, which deals with "remote" EU issues, ranked fourth among these well known public figures in Finland.




Ralf Grahn
speaker on EU affairs, especially digital policy and law

P.S. 1: For better or for worse, between the global issues and the national level, the European Union shapes our digital future and online freedoms. More than 900 euroblogs are aggregated by multilingual Bloggingportal.eu. Is your blog already listed among them? Are you following the debates which matter for your future?

P.S. 2: Referring the anti-piracy treaty #ACTA to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) marks a lull in the proceedings, but not an end to the political battle. A few moments ago, the petition launched by @Avaaz for the European Parliament (and the national parliaments) to reject ACTA had already been signed by 2,418,109 netizens, but more are welcome until the official burial.

Tomorrow, Saturday 25 February 2012, European netizens join forces through more than 150 demonstrations for open and democratic legislation and Internet freedoms. In Finland Stop ACTA Helsinki convenes in front of the Central Railway Station at 14:00 hours.

Policy euroblogs: economy and eurozone

Ronny Patz made some interesting observations about policy-oriented euroblogs. He mentioned and linked to a number of interesting blogs in different policy areas.

Patz mentioned the growth of economic blogging during the ongoing crisis, even if he did not name individual blogs.

There are now 888 blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu, the multilingual aggregator of euroblogs.

In order to pick up the thread where Ronny Patz had left off, I went back through the last few days of blog posts and marked the blogs which dealt mainly with the economy and the eurozone.

The choice is subjective, and some general euroblogs (not mentioned) manage to produce more quantity and quality in a few different fields than many specialised blogs in one.

Some of the economics blog are penned by mainstream media journalists, while others are written by individual economists and people interested in economic policies or politics more broadly.

Even if economics blogs tend to publish more during office days, I was surprised to find 32 blogs dealing mainly with the economy and the eurozone, and which had published these last days.


Here are the ones I stumbled across (with no claim to accurateness):

M.G. in progress

Protesilaos Stavrou

Arend-Jan Boekestijn (in Dutch)

I on Europe

WSJ Emerging Europe

FT Alphaville

Reinhard Bütikofer MEP (in German)

Kantoos Economics (bilingual German & English)

Open Europe blog

Lost in EUrope (in German)

Guardian Comment is free Europe (all areas)

WSJ Real Time Brussels

Berni's View (bilingual English & German)

Karpfenteich (in German)

Beyond Brussels (daily digest)

Social Europe Journal

Yanis Varoufakis

IIEA blogoshere (a number of writers)

Euro area debt crisis

Telos politique économique (in French)

French Politics

EU Weekly (bilingual French & English)

Revolting Europe

FinancialGuy

FT Brussels blog

European Welfare States

€uro-thoughts

A Fistful of Euros

Eurdemocracy

Place du Luxembourg

Crooked Timber

Coulisses de Bruxelles (economic and political issues, in French)



Ralf Grahn

Europe Day blogging 2011

Even if there is no real My Europe Week blog festival this year, you can still share your blog entries about Europe Day (9 May) events and your thoughts about the future of the European Union. By now there are about 35 new posts tagged 'myeurope' on Bloggingportal.eu.

On Twitter you can participate under the hashtags #EuropeDay and now also the shorter #euday, as well as the more reflective #MyEurope.


Own blogging

At this stage, my own experiment has been to compare feelings a year ago and now:

Share your Europe Day 2011

Europe Day essence: The future

Europe Day thrives on languages

Europe Day thoughts

***

Are there clear enough signs that the European Union has increasingly become a part of the solution? What should and could be done?



Ralf Grahn

European Council blogging: Part Four (11042011)

Previous round-ups of my blog entries were published in Part One, with articles posted 25 and 26 March, and Part Two, which took us from 27 to 29 March 2011.

Part Three corralled the blog posts published from 30 March to 1 April 2011.

My blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).

Part Four brings together the European Council and economic reform aims in the EU. The blog entries were published between 2 and 5 April 2011.


Describing and reforming the European Council

The procedures of European Council, the European Semester, the summit priorities and guidelines (if any), the Annual Growth Survey (AGS), the contributions by the Ecofin Council and the EPSCO Council, the synthesis report from the Hungarian presidency of the EU Council and thoughts about improving the governance, transparency and closeness of the European Council were discussed in a series of entries on Grahnlaw.

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities I (2 April 2011)

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities II (3 April 2011)

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities III (4 April 2011)

Grahnlaw: European Council: Economic policy reform priorities IV (5 April 2011)



Ralf Grahn



P.S. The five-language family of the Euros du Village in French, Gli Euros in Italian, Die Euros in German, The Euros in English and Los Euros in Spanish is a real fountain of European news and opinion, a treasure trove for interested EU citizens and language students alike.

European Council blogging: Part Three (11042011)

Previous round-ups of my blog entries were published in Part One, with articles posted 25 and 26 March, and Part Two, which took us from 27 to 29 March 2011.

The blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).

Part Three consists of the headlines of blog posts published from 30 March to 1 April 2011.


Economic policy

What did the spring summit say and do about economic policy and economic governance? The blog post looked at a few online comments.

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Commenting on European Council: Economic policy (30 March 2011)


European Stability Mechanism

This round-up concerned the new and permanent fund to prevent and to redress disruptions in the euro area. Here we took a tour of European press comments regarding the new bailout fund, intended to bring stability to the eurozone.

Grahnlaw: European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in media (30 March 2011)


Finnish rhapsody

A few remarks with regard to the Finnish rhapsody: Most documents are referenced referenced exactly enough to be found in other languages, blog posts and other online comments by others are in the original language and there is always the fall-back option to use Google translation.

The first post in Finnish is a summary of the economic policy decisions of the European Council and an outline of the next steps. It was followed by a presentation of the European Semester, including the preceding proposals from the Commission.

Eurooppaoikeus (in Finnish): EU-maiden talouspolitiikka: Seuraavat vaiheet (31 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Finnish): EU:n talouspolitiikan eurooppalainen ohjausjakso (European Semester) (1 April 2011)



Ralf Grahn



P.S. European Union Law is a noteworthy blog about EU law by Vihar Georgiev, who also writes a mirror blog in Bulgarian. Real treasures in a field where few have the stamina to keep going.

European Council blogging: Part Two (10042011)

Previous round-up of my blog entries was published in Part One, with articles posted 25 and 26 March 2011.

The blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).

Part Two takes us from 27 to 29 March 2011.


European Council practices and in Euroblogs

After the previous batch followed a Swedish rhapsody, although most documents referenced can be found in other languages, blog posts by others are in the original language and there is always the fall-back option to use Google translation.

Observations about the lack of transparency were followed by a peek at translation issues and the available materials, followed by three round-ups of Euroblog posts in different languages about the European Council issues with regard to economic policies.

Grahnblawg (in Swedish): Europeiska rådets slutsatser: Konsensus och ogenomskinlighet (27 March 2011)

Grahnblawg (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet: Status och slutsatser på 23 språk (27 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar I (28 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar II (28 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar III (28 March 2011)


Euro Plus Pact

We looked at media reports and reactions to the 24 and 25 March 2011 European Council adoption of the Euro Plus Pact, which joins the 17 eurozone countries with Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, leaving only the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom outside.

Grahnlaw: Euro Plus Pact in the media I (29 March 2011)

Grahnlaw: Euro Plus Pact in the media II (29 March 2011)



Ralf Grahn



P.S. The European Tribune offers both a daily review of international media and a community which discusses interesting topics concerning the EU, economics, finance etc. Lurk or join.

European Council blogging: Part One (10042011)

My latest collection of blog posts was presented on Grahnlaw (in English) a little more than two weeks ago: European Council blogging (24032011).

It is easier to find the relevant subject, if I offer myself and others an overview of the later blog entries on the economic policy theme at the spring European Council.

The blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).


Tripartite Social Summit

After an earlier introduction, a few blog entries presented the public statements of the participants in the Tripartite Social Summit, the social partners (employers, employees and EU institutions).

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Tripartite Social Summit: Unions and PES (25 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Reform camp leaders ahead of Tripartite Social Summit and European Council (25 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Tripartite Social Summit and European Council: EU views (25 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Tripartite Social Summit and European Council: Business views (25 March 2011)


Spring summit in a nutshell

After the spring European Council, I looked at the available links and materials, as well as the brief economic messages from the European leaders.

Grahnlaw: Spring European Council summary (26 March 2011)



Ralf Grahn




P.S. After an interesting ranking of top European media in French on Europe 27etc, ”Jamel de L'or” returned with a useful top ten of the European affairs media to follow in English (plus ten others, although the wrong link was offered for Grahnlaw).

European Council blogging (24032011)

Ahead of the European Council on economic governance, growth and jobs, on 24 and 25 March 2011, I have written a number of posts on my blogs, Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).

Here are the four previous collections of blog entries.

Energy and employment dominated the batch on Grahnlaw: Baker's dozen of Grahnlaw & Co. on EU affairs (8 March 2011)

Growth reforms in line with the Europe 2020 strategy (EU2020) were at the centre of the following roundup on Grahnblawg: EU-ekonomi: Tillväxt och sysselsättning på Grahnlaw & Co (12 March 2011)

With the surrounding text in Finnish, but the blog post headlines in the original languages, the next collection of posts was presented Eurooppaoikeus, under the headline: EU2020 (16032011).

The EU2020 strategy, the European Semester, the pact for the euro and the positions of Sweden and Finland were among the themes of the blog entries collected on Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Blogging ahead of European Council (22032011).


Latest posts

Since the collections, some individual blog posts have been published.

Eurooppaoikeus: Talousuudistukset Eurooppa-neuvostoon (23 March 2011)

Eurooppaoikeus: Uudistajat kannustavat Eurooppa-neuvostoa (23 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Ruotsi ei osallistu euroa koskevaan sopimukseen (23 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Tanska osallistuu euroa koskevaan sopimukseen (23 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Unkari ei osallistu euroa koskevaan sopimukseen (23 March 2011)


Openness and closeness

This blog post took a look at the advance materials available from the European Council (in Finnish, but select the language you prefer or use Google translation):

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Eurooppa-neuvosto 24. ja 25. maaliskuuta 2011: Avoimuus ja läheisyys? (24 March 2011)


The previous post

Grahnlaw: EU Tripartite Social Summit (24 March 2011)


***

Far from all issues of economic policy at the European Council spring meeting have been covered by the blog posts, but compare them with the advance information we have from the EU institutions: the preparatory General Affairs Council (GAC) and the European Council itself.



Ralf Grahn

Bloggingportal.eu reaches 700 Euroblogs

The multilingual Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates the posts of 700 Euroblogs, which write about issues related to the European Union or the Council of Europe.

You can pop in to scan all new entries or read the editors' choices on the front page. Both are available as RSS feeds. You can also subscribe to the daily and weekly newsletter.

Follow @bloggingportal on Twitter.com and Bloggingportal.eu on Facebook.com.

Across national and linguistic borders Bloggingportal.eu offers you some of the best reporting and commentary on European affairs, an intrinsic part of our future.




Ralf Grahn

Should libertarians read quality Euroblogs?

I try to promote quality blogs about European affairs by suggestions to the readers of my blogs and to my friends on Facebook. Mostly they are Euroblogs I follow and listed among the now 698 blogs aggregated by the multilingual Bloggingportal.eu.

Naturally my choices are subjective, but I follow the same rule of thumb with regard to blogs as other media, offline and online:

You are better informed after reading than before.

Many fine blogs have been mentioned earlier, but among later recommendations we find Europe 27etc, Atlantic Community, Bit more complicated, Bloggingportal.eu blog, FT Brussels Blog, Mathew Lowry, Christian Engström, Ciudadano Morante, Comparative Law Blog, Conflict of Laws .net, Charlemagne’s notebook and Bruxelles2.


Libertarianism

Recently Mathew Lowry caught my eye with a post about abusive online pyjama people: In praise of ‘proper’ media (13 November 2010).

According to Lowry, people like that destroy intelligent online conversations.

Let us take a step back to read the Wikipedia article Libertarianism, where the first and general description mentions the advocacy of individual liberty, especially of thought and action. The core beliefs of the US Libertarian Party are also worth noticing, while the Nolan chart classifies personal and economic freedom in an interesting manner.

Superior choices?

My understanding of libertarianism may be incomplete, but if the aim is minimal public intervention and a preference for individual choices, this seems to indicate that the latter are somehow superior.

It may be an aberration to tell libertarians what they should do, but we have to assume that these liberated people are drawn towards quality reading as well.

It would seem to be in the best libertarian tradition for readers to make intelligent choices.

Thus, they can be trusted to be the first to desert abusive and lunatic blogs, can’t they? It is hardly a question of dress code, but an issue of credibility and constructive discourse.



Ralf Grahn



P.S. On Cosmetic Uprise – UK and the EU Mia Välimäki publishes her personal comments on the relationship between the Chunnel Island and the Continent which has fascinated writers since De bello Gallico.

Blogging in Swedish and Finnish

Call it self-referential, a holy or unholy mess or whatever, but I am going to take a look at my blogs in Swedish and Finnish. Here are a few facts and thoughts about my three blogs here on Blogger: Grahnlaw, Grahnblawg and Eurooppaoikeus


With 1,884 entries to date, Grahnlaw has clearly been my main focus. However, sometimes I feel that I should write more in Finnish and Swedish. During October I have been a little bit more active publishing on Grahnblawg in Swedish and on Eurooppaoikeus in Finnish.


Swedish

I have written a few entries in Swedish on Grahnblawg about the Commission’s internal market priorities, advance information about Council meetings (in this case the Competitiveness Council), the free movement of persons (citizenship), migration and integration (Finland and Sweden) and the Single Market Act soon to be proposed.


Finnish


My themes in Finnish on Eurooppaoikeus have been similar: internal market priorities, the application of EU law, statistics on applications for residence permit in Finland, the internal market awaiting reform proposals, as well as integration and employment for migrants (new government bill).


All in all, my blogs here on Blogger are related, but not exact clones. The Swedish and Finnish blogs will deal with EU affairs, but also with matters concerning work and entrepreneurship for “natives”, mobile EU citizens and migrants.




Ralf Grahn

Application of blogs to EU law: Jaanika Erne and Martinned

Here on Grahnlaw we have discussed various aspects of EU legislation, more or less related to the Report from the Commission:



27th annual report on monitoring the application of EU law (2009); Brussels 1.10.2010 COM(2010) 538 final (12 pages)


Here is a reminder of the related blog posts:



How much EU law is there? Smart regulation and impact assessments (13 October 2010)



Smart Regulation in the European Union (14 October 2010)



How much EU legislation in member state UK? Nosemonkey and House of Commons Library (15 October 2010)



Full-bodied EU acquis – the bouquet of EU English (16 October 2010)



Jaanika Erne



On her Ideas on Europe blog, Jaanika Erne has now done readers the service of writing a clear summary of what the Commission actually reported: 27th Annual Report on Monitoring the Application of EU Law (2009) (17 October 2010).

Erne's summary highlights the resolution of infringement procedures at different stages, as well as statistics on new petitions by policy area.



More generally Jaanika Erne’s blog is worth following for its treatment of issues of legal education (University of Tartu, Estonia and Europe), human rights in Europe (ECHR and ECtHR) and EU legislative procedures.



Martinned


If legal blogs are suspected of seriousness, Martinned does not walk away scot-free, but blogs have their distinct personalities, and Martinned has its personal style.



Martinned manages to squeeze This Week in Luxembourg (14 October 2010) into about one snappy page, but with helpful links for those who thirst for more.




Among the legal Euroblogs on Bloggingportal.eu, Martinned is one of the few active blogs in its important niche right now: the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

A distinct style and a clear niche – not a bad recipe for a blog.




Ralf Grahn

Euroblogs: Online and social media in Spanish

The previous post presented three individual Spanish Euroblogs. We continue with a summary on communication by the EU and by mentioning two different collectives which publish in Spanish.



On blog Bitácora, which is a part of the Spanish version of multilingual Presseurop network, Susana del Río Villar an expert on Team Europa of the EU Commission representation in Spain describes communication challenges from the viewpoint of the EU institutions. In her first post on the subject, she discusses ‘total communication’ in Europe, which is much more than information: Comunicación integral (I) (9 September 2010).

Conceptually the European Parliament made a great leap forward ahead of the 2009 elections, although the debates were hijacked by national politics. Right now the European Commission attempts to project a more centralised and personalised message through its president José Manuel Barroso.

The virtual game Citzalia tries a different tack to engage younger citizens, but it remains to be seen if it succeeds.



What citizens do not seem to realise is that they are present daily in the real world European Parliament, through the directly elected Members of the European Parliament. Tweet your MEP (which starts on 22 September 2010) will certainly connect Europarliamentarians with citizens.

Each Euroblog has its own personality, but they publish, motivate debate and shape European public opinion on a daily basis. The former hierarchies of communication are a thing of the past. They cannot control the responses, but the messages can engage more people. Participation complements representation.



El País and La Comunidad



El País online presents itself as a global newspaper in Spanish. (Remember more than 400 million native Spanish speakers worldwide, second most globally.) It has quality reporting and opinion pieces on its pages for Europe.



La Comunidad of El País houses Euroblog, a collective European blog, where different citizen bloggers (cross)post their entries.



Europa451



Europa451 is a slightly different collective, because it is thebrainchild of five young professional journalists: Fernando Navarro, Jean Sébastien Lefebvre, Julie Gonce, Francesca Barca and Cédric Audinot.



They work together to produce articles in Spanish (Europa451.es), French (Europa451.fr) and Italian (Europa451.it).



By the way, this reminds me of the Day of Multilingual Blogging, 26 September 2010. There are many different ways to participate, but already 131 are attending and 119 may be attending.

Is crossing linguistic and national borders more useful than fun, or vice versa?




Ralf Grahn

Euroblogosphere: Three Spanish quality blogs #bkaeb

The blog post on the absence of Euroblogs in Portugal (or Portuguese) did not immediately result in hidden treasures being found, although the country (population 10.6 million) is a member of the European Union and the language could act as a bridge to 260 million Portuguese speakers worldwide.



Please, comment if you are aware of Portuguese Euroblogs, which could take their rightful place on Bloggingportal.eu, the multilingual aggregator for EU related blogs, and enliven the European online public sphere.



Spain and Spanish

Economic difficulties and high unemployment have shaped outside perceptions of Spain and Portugal lately, but both countries are EU members since 1986, fully engaged in all European Union policies without opt-outs, so they share the common currency (although they are struggling to achieve economic growth and tolerable public deficits).



If we lump the Iberians together, there are about 56 million of them, with about 46 million in Spain alone (Eurostat 2010).



Not only is Spain one of the bigger EU members, but with more than 400 million native speakers the Spanish language is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese (source: Wikipedia). Thus, Spanish Euroblogs have the potential to build bridges towards the outside world, in addition to their participation in discussion at national and European level.



Internally, in democratic Spain the autonomous communities play an important part, and especially Catalan language blogs deal with European issues as well. With a population of 7.5 million, Catalonia is bigger than nine EU member states (sources: Wikipedia).



Euroblogs #bkaeb

Spain has an active community of EU related blogs. In this blog post we take a look at three individual Spanish Eurobloggers, with more to come in later entries.

Eva en Europa, Más Europa and Ciudadano Morante are three Euroblogs well worth the recognition and encouragement intended by the #bkaeb Twitter hashtag (for Better Know A EuroBlog).



When there was much criticism of the title and content of José Manuel Durão Barroso’s “State of the Union” speech, fellow-Iberian Eva Peña countered the trend by a spirited defence, as we mentioned earlier. Her blog post Más presidente (8 September 2010) on Eva en Europa saw the debate in Strasbourg as a historic day on the road towards a political Europe.

Blogging from Barcelona, Eva Peña writes mainly in Spanish, but also in Catalan and English.

Más Europa is the forum where Encarna Hernández blogs about past, present and future European integration. She uses her academic background to write educational blog posts on various themes. Her thorough work has not gone unnoticed.



The latest blog entry by Hernández, ¿Habemus líder? (9 September 2010), picked up the thread from Eva Peña, with an in depth article about Barroso’s speech and the debate, without omitting weak points. She also discussed Barroso’s performance in the context of the Commission’s new communication strategy, arguing that Barroso is a better communicator than Buzek, Van Rompuy or Ashton, although Europe needs work, dedication and sacrifices more than words. In her view, Europe has a leader.



On Ciudadano Morante, Jorge Juan Morante López offered a summary of Europe’s “moment of truth”, the need for more than 27 separate national solutions: ¿En qué estado se encuentra la Union europea? (9 September 2010).


“Europeísmo”

All three blogs mentioned have their personal style, but what they have in common is a European perspective and a spirit of “europeísmo” as natural as the air they breathe.



In a country where 76.72 per cent voted ‘Yes’ to the EU’s Constitutional Treaty (although the turnout was only 42.32 in this non-dramatic referendum) and where the Congress of Deputies had to settle for, but approved the lesser Treaty of Lisbon by 322 votes to 6, and the Senate by 232 votes to 6, being pro-European is a natural state (a breath of fresh air for someone who devotes time and effort to following the uniquely negative atmosphere in the United Kingdom).



Recognition

There seems to be recognition by the Commission representation in Spain and continued interaction with the EU related blogosphere, something EU representations in other member states could take a closer look at.

In 2009 or 2010, Más Europa, Ciudadano Morante and Eva en Europa have all been awarded diplomas by the Commission office in Spain, but there also seems to be interaction between Euroblogs, with the government, mainstream media and educational events.

Some bloggers are campaigning for a daily slot for Europe on state television news (RTVE), just as, in my view, all European public broadcasters and quality newspapers should have a daily section on Europe, a distinct context between the national and the global.


Spain in the EU

Despite the groundswell of ‘Europeanness’, Spanish governments have at times been as pigheaded as the worst member states: almost wrecking treaty negotiations on Nice Council votes, unilateral mass naturalisation of immigrants, lack of macro and micro level reforms causing headaches for the common currency, certain difficulties for the Spanish presidency of the EU Council to adapt to the Lisbon Treaty, an affordable European patent etc.



General suggestions

Here I have presented only three blogs, but I venture a few broader impressions. My feeling is that the Spanish blogosphere in general has been muted in its criticism of officialdom. In my view, there would be room for more critical discussion about ‘real’ Spanish EU politics and EU shortcomings, among Spanish Euroblogs.

In order to cross linguistic and national borders, more linking and sharing between Spanish and other Eurobloggers, opening vistas for readers in both directions, would be another item on my wish-list.

We will return to the Spanish Euroblog theme in future posts.




Ralf Grahn

Euroblogosphere: Who discovers Portugal?

The current population of Portugal is 10.6 million, but this small country was at the vanguard of European overseas exploration (Wikipedia).



About 260 million speakers of Portuguese are the legacy of these intrepid explorers and the colonial empire their discoveries led to. Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world (Source: Wikipedia).



The former Portuguese prime minister José Manuel Durão Barroso is president of the European Commission since November 2004 (Wikipedia), now in his second term.

The current update of the EU Treaties is called the Treaty of Lisbon. Portugal participates in all EU policies, without opt-outs.

The present economic difficulties make Portugal one of the countries to follow with special care within the European Union and the Eurozone.

However, Portugal is quiet on the Euroblog front.



Among the 662 EU related blogs on the multilingual blog aggregator Bloggingportal.eu, the only blog in Portuguese to have published during the last seven days seems to be the internationally oriented Tratados, by Bruno Oliveira Martins.

I also made sporadic attempts to find Portuguese Euroblogs through other means, but came up short.

How should I put it?

Is it the time for the Portuguese to discover Europe, or social media, or should European online media discover Portugal?




Ralf Grahn

Bloggers in Europe: Join Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010

The previous blog post mentioned the European Day of Languages, which is celebrated each 26 September.



Officially organised by the Council of Europe and the European Union, the purpose of the EDL is to inspire you to learn a foreign language.



Day of Multilingual Blogging



In this context the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, as described by Antonia Mochan on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU). The UK Representation is joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers.



Languages for and as business



Besides being fun and enriching for your soul, languages are an important business, an advantage when you trade and crucial for landing EU jobs, Antonia Mochan tells her British compatriots. (The same goes for other EU countries.)



Facebook event page



On the event page on Facebook, 122 European bloggers have already signed up to participate in the pan-European Day of Multilingual Blogging, and 106 may be attending.

Join the event.

Here are a few suggestions:

Write a blog post in a foreign language, exchange entries with another blogger, invite a guest blogger, or write about the importance of learning languages and getting to know the history and culture of another country.

Why not tell about your experiences studying abroad (Erasmus) or as an intern?

Do you have other ideas? If so, you can post a comment.



Twitter

The Twitter hashtag is #babel.

Besides tweeting about our blog entries, we can try to write a short message in another language (easier than a full blog post).



Yes, you can …

There are other things you can do as well. You can spread the news through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.



Bloggingportal.eu


Have you noticed that there is a multilingual blog aggregator, where you can find the posts from blogs related to EU affairs?



It is called Bloggingportal.eu, and it has grown to collect the entries by 662 Euroblogs. You can access the page with all the new posts or the front page selection, subscribe to RSS feeds for all posts or editors’ choices (front page), and subscribe to the daily or weekly newsletter.

Reading foreign language blogs offers you two benefits:

You become better informed about European affairs and you have fun learning languages.

In an integrating Europe, EU affairs become increasingly important, but most EU citizens admit that they should know more about the European Union. The Euroblogosphere covers a growing number of subjects and viewpoints, with increasing variety and depth.

Bloggingportal.eu is a good place to start crossing national and linguistic borders without leaving your desk.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.

It is easier to read and understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.

In addition to Grahnlaw (in English), although in a lazy manner, I practice multilingual blogging by occasional posts on my Finnish blog Eurooppaoikeus and my Swedish blog Grahnblawg.

After Eurogoblin: Why is English not the lingua franca of European integration?

The free movement of goods, persons, services and capital has been popular in England, at least when headed towards the European Continent, but the free flow of thoughts less so in the reverse direction, if threatening to enrich Britain.



Have you ever seen a pious goblin? Me neither, until Eurogoblin took the “Finding Europe’s Mojo” motto seriously and posted a short essay (but long blog post) called The Christian Roots of European Unity.



I join Vihar Georgiev (of European Union Law) in his wish that many people will take the time to read the post because it raises important questions and Eurocentric (of The European Citizen) in his assessment: Brilliant post!

For now, I am going to make some remarks on languages and culture(s) in relationship to European integration.




Languages and culture(s)


English has become a lingua franca for commerce, as well as the second language for university and college students all over Europe. There are also great publishers, such as Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press and Palgrave Macmillan, with titles on the history, politics and law of European integration.




However, generally EUSSR myths, disinformation and constant sowing of discord seem to be much more in demand in the United Kingdom than interest in languages and cultures next door. The culture just is not there.

Beyond their mother tongue, many European students are limited to the offer in English, so their world view is formed by what they can access.



The roots and motives of European integration remain almost invisible, if left to British media (mainstream and social), politicians and expressions from an uninformed public.



The British are constantly hammered with myths that the UK was taken into the “Common Market”, without giving the people a choice, and that the EEC has surreptitiously turned into a European Union super-state. First of all, membership in the three European Communities was approved in a referendum in 1975. Secondly, every Treaty since the Treaty of Rome has visibly highlighted the quest for “ever closer union”. With slightly different wording, the idea of a future common destiny was laid out in the 1951 Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. The Schuman declaration (1950) described the ECSC as “a first step in the federation of Europe”. Thirdly, in the international arena the European Union is almost as weak as Poland under the 'liberum veto', and almost as impossible to reform (multiple unanimity rules).



The “integration by stealth" myth is bollocks, despite daily disinformation. Actually, Britain joined a project of ever deeper integration, but has been in constant breach of the spirit of its commitment. Sir Humphrey’s parody of UK foreign policy in Yes, Minister (on YouTube) contains more than a grain of truth.



Martin Kettle describes the consequences for the UK of this linguistic and cultural “blindness” in The Guardian: Trapped in the Anglosphere, we’ve lost sight of next door.

In addition, one could remark, this tunnel vision affects increasing numbers of young Europeans for whom English is their only foreign language.



These are some of the reasons why the Council of Europe’s annual European Day of Languages on 26 September is important.



Antonia on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU) tells us that the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, and the UK Representation has been joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers. Join the event page on Facebook, spread the word through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.

The culture of European integration has often been nurtured with more thought and understanding in other European languages. Especially in the United Kingdom and the other later entrants among the EU member states (including my own, Finland), there is a need to look for sources beyond the confines of England and English.

Why not put free movement of thought on your agenda?




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.

It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.

Bloggingportal.eu and social media experiences in Grahnlaw post number 1,800

There is no magic in numbers, but it often feels comfortable to choose a certain date or an even number for a milestone. Say, the better life (learning Italian, keeping fit ... whatever) we start on 1 September – every year. Or, an even number of blog entries as an excuse to think aloud.

If active participants have called the Euroblogosphere self-referential, what can be more so than writing about your own blog, with no more justification than this being entry number 1,800 on Grahnlaw?


Temporarily, Grahnlaw has been centred more on Euroblogging and social media, than on issues of EU law, politics and policies. Online media offer unique opportunities for participation across linguistic and national borders, building European online public spaces. The explicit multilingual comment policy is one of new features on Grahnlaw.



Bloggingportal.eu



It has been a joy to see the continued growth of the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu, which has now reached 651 blogs related to EU affairs (Euroblogs).



The editors’ choices on the front page of Bloggingportal.eu (and in the daily email newsletter), as well as the weekly roundup on the Bloggingportal.eu blog (and in the weekly newsletter), are valuable, but they reveal only the tip of the iceberg.



The continually updated stream of new posts is significantly down right now, due to the holiday season, but I expect Eurobloggers to return with zest, after rest, and the published posts are worth reading wherever you are.



Linguistic diversity? Virtually invisible interests?



This is only a snapshot at an arbitrary moment, but there is an astonishing difference between the size of the language communities in the European Union (European Economic Area) and blogger activity in the 25 languages on offer:



Among the 50 latest posts, there were 2 in Danish, 2 in German, 24 in English, 2 in Spanish, 3 in French, 1 in Norwegian, 1 in Polish, 1 in Portuguese and 14 in Swedish, when I checked.

Are there any conclusions you would like to draw?

Should bloggers engaged in European affairs take up the challenge to place their language (among the 16 missing from this sample) on the virtual map of the Euroblogosphere?

Are some linguistic communities under-represented, even if there was a post or two?

The European Union does not have exclusive competence in many policy areas, but it is active in more than thirty broad fields, with shared powers or in a complementary capacity, and a plethora of more narrow policy issues.

The EU is the frame of reference for many policy debates at national, regional and local level (although more seldom discussed in those terms locally).

There are huge numbers of European interest groups and associated national bodies, businesses, labour market organisations, EU and government officials, policy experts, consultants, lobbyists, EU projects, Europarties and their political foundations, politicians at all levels, NGOs, journalists, researchers, teachers, students, engaged citizens, and networks, who need to communicate with the outside world.

In my view, the Euroblogosphere needs more professional blogging on real issues, but online visibility is a key to success and interaction between different levels of governance is a necessity for various interests, although regular blogging is hard work.




Yesterday, Anne Christensen described on the Waltzing Matilda blog how the Commission and the other institutions of the European Union are upgrading their presence on social networks. This lays the foundations for a gradual shift from an information mindset to participation. Some day more politicians and officials may become courageous enough to venture onto outside forums as well, or at least start following exchanges on them.

If even institutional dinosaurs are on the move, shouldn’t nimble mammals be running ahead at high speed?

Naturally, the need for “hard information” is going nowhere. I need the Official Journal of the European Union, news and documents from the Council and the European Parliament, as well as other EU agencies and bodies, both for my blogging activities and in my work as a lawyer, interested in cross-border issues.

Online media offer valuable news and comments.



Volunteer work by editorial team



In principle, there is a chance to look for blog posts thematically (Topics button), but Bloggingportal.eu needs more voluntary editors to tag all new posts (and highlight the best ones).

The system of available tags is far from perfect, but with added programming skills on the editorial team, some improvements might be possible, even on the current platform.



Why not apply to join the team of editors?

Willingness to do grunt work (tagging), an eye for journalistic merit and original writing (not only among mainstream media), linguistic skills and programming abilities are much appreciated. Editorial independence is a valued asset, so people working for the EU institutions, or with pronounced commercial or organisational interests may not fit the bill to become editors, even if their blogs are welcome. Do not apply with the hidden agenda to promote your own posts: This is off limits.

Central and Eastern European languages are still under-represented among editors, as they are among Euroblogs.

The editors form a loose network, with little decision-making structures and even less executing powers, but the team is also a community which discusses common editorial issues, and the team spirit facilitates occasional personal contacts regarding other matters between individual editors.



Own experiences on other social media



I have participated actively on Twitter for a few months, and I use it to announce when I have published a new blog post, but especially to follow what others in the Euroblogosphere are saying, to retweet interesting entries or article links and sometimes to engage in discussions within the 140 character limit per tweet.

Almost daily, I find someone new with an interest in European affairs to follow, and it is usually a pleasure to find that somebody wants to follow my tweets.

Tags like #EU, #euroblog, #eulaw, #eurozone, #EP (European Parliament), #europarl, #EuTrioBe (Council presidency), #bkaeb (Better Know A EuroBlog recommendation), #EU2020 (for the economic reform strategy) and @bloggingportal help to keep me updated on the Euroblogosphere and media, when the tweets on the Home page keep disappearing at an increasing speed.



I follow a number of Euroblogs and media on my own blog - jestingly the “canonised version” although constantly developing - but also more widely through Google Reader and Bloglines feeds, as well as email subscriptions.



A few days ago I joined Facebook, after dithering for long, so I have only taken my first tentative steps. While getting the feel for the place, I have had time to add only a small number of friends, but I have been pleased to notice that already some blog readers, as well as other virtual and real life friends and acquaintances have taken the initiative.

It will be interesting to see how the Facebook experience pans out in the long run.



Incidentally, I found that there are great numbers of European and EU related groups (even if you look only in English), which could start blogging and join Bloggingportal.eu (if they have not done it by now).

How do you relate to European online media and social media networks, and how do you evaluate your own experiences?




Ralf Grahn



P.S. The Grahnlaw blog invites comments relevant to the topics discussed, but the number and the variety of spam comments seems to be increasing steadily. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your pertinent comment appears. Sometimes technical problems occur, such as yesterday when I received nine copies by the same author of the same comment, of which one copy was published.

It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.

EU tax: Euroblog discussion on Bloggingportal.eu

One of the few silly season issues to make waves during summer recess in Brussels has been the preliminary announcement by the EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski that he will present a few options for an EU tax in September, as reported by Financial Times Deutschland on 9 August 2010 (in German).



For the benefit of those who read English, EUobserver ran a story two days later, where Lewandowski defended the idea of shifting the burden from the budgets of the member states to revenue financed by Europeans more directly (although it would most probably be an indirect tax).



Incidentally, I found no official information on the web pages of Commissioner Lewandowski or the DG Budget or the pages of Financial Programming and Budget, which gives the discussion something of a silly season flavour, at this stage.

Some member state governments and lobby groups wanted to score immediate points by rejecting any proposals out of hand, before seeing the details and arguments.



Despite the predictable gut reactions from the usual suspects, there have also been more measured responses among Euroblogs. A fair sample of blog posts is available under the topics tag Taxation and Customs, and newer, still untagged posts are aggregated in the stream of all posts on Bloggingportal.eu.



In the short term, discussing a European Union tax may be as futile as defence pleading before the French Revolutionary Tribunal during the reign of terror, but EU level taxation touches upon a number of fundamental issues of European integration, ultimately relevant to the security and prosperity of EU citizens.

In some cases aspects have been deliberately or unwittingly distorted by media and citizens, so there is also cause to correct a few misunderstandings.

Let the EU tax discussion continue in order to clarify matters.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.