• The website of the Icelandic Modern Media Initative.

• Simon Head writes in the New York Review of Books about The Grim Threat to British Universities.

• The man who writes your students’ papers tells his story: The Shadow Scholar

• There is a Free Software Users Group in the European Parliament http://epfsug.eu

• Kovács and Kováts – The new blog of the spokespersons of the Hungarian EU Council Presidency.

• The revised list of EU Council preparatory bodies (via @ronpatz on twitter)

• Nominations are invited for the Reporting Europe Prize.

• RSS Is Dying Being Ignored, and You Should Be Very Worried and a follow-up.

• And some more WikiLeaks pieces: Clay Shirky argues that wikileaks  has created a new media landscape and Evgeny Morozov thinks that the age of the WikiLeaks-style vigilante geek is over

• Another Clay Shirky essay: The Political Power of Social Media published in Foreign Affairs.

• More relevant than ever: Tim Berners-Lee: Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality

Memex 1.1 » What the attacks on WikiLeaks tell us.

Wikileaks, Now « zunguzungu

WL Central- An unofficial WikiLeaks information resource

Reporters Sans Frontières – Wikileaks hounded?

A list of Wikileaks Mirrors and a guide how to support Mass Mirroring

Raffi Khatchadourian: No Secrets Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency (The New Yorker)

Like It or Not, WikiLeaks is a Media Entity (gigaom.com)

The Weakest Link: What Wikileaks Has Taught Us About the Open Internet | an/archivista

Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

Kontrapunkt: Schafft zwei, drei, viele Wikileaks! – Meinung – Tagesspiegel

List of people who have criminalised Julian Assange

PdFLeaks: Carne Ross on the Diplomacy Before and After Wikileaks | techPresident

PdF Presents: A Symposium on Wikileaks and Internet Freedom | Personal Democracy Forum

From Wikileaks to OpenLeaks, Via the Knight News Challenge | techPresident

Richard Stallman Kettling Wikileaks | DefectiveByDesign.org

WikiLeaks has created a new media landscape | Clay Shirky | Comment is free | The Guardian.

The age of the WikiLeaks-style vigilante geek is over | Evgeny Morozov | The Guardian.

[FYI: This linkroll will be updated regularly - so if you are interested in the topic make sure to check back from time to time. ]

A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting.They are very angry people.

OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk.

But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night. (…)  Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things on line that they wouldn’t dream of saying in person.

What did the Belgian daily De Standaard write when the Treaty of Rome was adopted?

This could be something important…

And another classic EU quote:

there are two categories of countries: the small ones and the ones that do not realise that they are small (Max Kohstamm)

Let’s start with the EU foreign policy basics.

Other continents play chess, the EU plays ping pong…

… working without strategy has its merits but time is changing and it does not work anymore…

EU integration can then be defined as a “method of not having a strategy”

About the EEAS:

It looks like a Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is organised as a MFA, it works like a MFA but it is not called MFA? Well, it is still a MFA!

The future:

Did we learn the lessons to deal with “future Afghanistans”?

Enlargement has been one of the most defining characteristics of EU integration:

Enlargement a EU foreign policy tool?  No: enlargement is enlargement.  Foreign policy is foreign policy.

But remember:

EU enlargement can also happen by splitting up member states….

So, what is the European Union?

A super-Switzerland

EU geek fact of the day:

There are 19 references to the UN in the EU Treaties.

A universal quote for every decision maker:

I fully understand that political decisions are time consuming, but…

EU in 2010:

It has been a very bad year for the European Community: it was totally replaced by the European Union

If you need a good name for a committee you are about to set up what about:

EGFA = Expert Group for Further Action

Some quotes by José Manuel Barroso (the keynote speaker) who  does not like “the intellectual glamor of pessimism”:

this academic conference reminds me of the time when I still had the time for reflection.

EU is not a federal state. Comparisons with federal states will be disappointing. Good results if compared to international organisations  or other regions regions

We are a non-imperial empire.

Realists are wrong most of the time. Realism is the closest thing to cynicism.

If Europe does not get more united it gets more dis-united.

Foreign policy starts at home.

I quote the Lisbon treaty because I believe that the Member States have read it before they signed it…

The EU interest is more than the sum of the national interests.

• Serbia’s climate change

  The formation of a new government in Serbia offers modest hope of progress in its path to European Union membership, say Daniel Korski & Ivan Zverzhanovski.

• Grahnlaw: Anti-EU by any other name

  Is the label “euroscepticism” misleading? The idea is that labels such “anti-EU” or “anti-Europe” would be more suitable to describe “Eurosceptics” since most people that would put themselves in this category actually oppose any Europe wide approach. Very interesting thought!

• Fear and strange arithmetics: when powerful states confront powerless immigrants

  Interesting essay by Saskia Sassen: “It is surprising to see the high price in terms of ethical and economic costs that powerful ‘liberal democracies’ seem willing to pay in order to control extremely powerless people who only want a chance to work. Immigrants and refugees have to be understood as a historical vanguard that signals major ‘unsettlements’ in both sending and receiving countries.”

• National populism versus democracy – Antony Todorov

  Populist movements are a threat not because they raise the issue of direct democracy, but because they advocate nationalist mobilisation based on xenophobia, writes Antony Todorov. Given the failure of the leftist projects of the twentieth century, it is telling that far-right populism is more anti-democratic in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe than in western Europe. Is populism identical to the crisis of democracy or rather a symptom of it?

• Joschka Fischer: Das vereinte Europa ist gescheitert

  Joschka Fischer has no hope anymore…
  

• Wolfgang Munchau – Europe’s hardball plan B for the Lisbon treaty

  “An alternative would be a referendum with a differently worded question, such as: “Do you want to remain in the EU on the basis of the Lisbon treaty?” Of course, this bundles two questions many people would like to answer separately. Yes, stay in the EU, No to Lisbon. But folding the two into a single question is politically more honest because it is Ireland’s only real-world choice.”

• Robert Kagan – In Europe, a Slide Toward Irrelevance

  Robert Kagan’s take on the Irish ‘NO’ – basically what you would expect from him, but also with a few good points.

• The fear factory devastated Ireland’s flaccid political class

  “You forgot us in Shannon.” — “Our sons are too good-looking for the army” –”right-wing Catholics” — “leftwing anti-militarists” — “a mysterious group that emerged from nowhere with a great deal of money to spend” — “Imported British Euroscepticism” — “a very efficient factory of fears” — “an extensive menu of anxieties” — “the scattergun of negativity only had to hit one sensitive spot”

• Will Hutton: Europe must not be derailed by lies and disinformation
  

  “On top of these there is the political problem that the treaty can’t be rewritten to accommodate specific Irish concerns because it already does; Ireland’s ‘no’ campaigners told lies. The voters’ great concerns had been met. There is a specific protocol that guarantees Ireland’s neutrality and excuses it from membership of any joint European defence effort, if any surfaces. There is no possibility of Ireland being told to enforce abortion. And all states have autonomy over tax policy.”

• The Irish “no” and the rich-poor/urban-rural divide

  “The Irish ‘no’ – like the 2005 French ‘non’ – shows a clear poor/rich and urban/rural divide. Working-class and rural voters are systematically voting against further European integration. European leaders should take note.”

• DJ Nozem: Euroblog Coverage: The Irish ‘No’

  A handy round-up about the Irish ‘No’ in the blogosphere…

• Macedonia’s election | A Balkan Belgium? | Economist.com

• “A fashionable idea is circulating among Balkan-watchers: “Belgianisation”. This is not meant to suggest complex federalism. Instead it implies that different nationalities whom history has left sharing a state are at last behaving like Belgians, reaching for ballot boxes and courts, rather than guns and bombs.”

• The amusing approach to the Treaty of Lisbon – the spoofer’s guide
  

  Quite a funny “guide” … I wonder how many people in Ireland will actually read it…

• Lisbon Treaty faces rejection as No vote doubles in latest poll

  It is gonna be a close race. And it seems that No voters don’t know anything about the treaty: “The reason most often cited by No voters is that they don’t know what they are voting for or they don’t understand the treaty – with 30 per cent of No voters listing this as the main reason for their decision.” I have argued before that referendums and uninformed publics do not go well together, moreover referenda over several hundred pages of legal text will never cause any enthusiasm… Let’s see on Thursday…

• Brussels Blogger : Comments on the logo of the French EU Presidency

  The logo of the French EU presidency…it is actually quite ugly…

• Get involved over Georgia or invite a war

  “The west could be sleepwalking into a war on the European continent. Georgia, which burst into view with a moving display of democratic ambition during the Rose Revolution of 2003, is teetering on the brink of war with Russia over the separatist Georgian enclave of Abkhazia. The outcome of this crisis – involving a fledgling democracy with aspirations to join Nato and the European Union – will help determine the rules of the post-cold-war security system. But western diplomats are not sending strong enough signals to either side.”

• A Bit of Humor « The Balkan Report

  A new balkan blog with this hilarious post: “In the early days of the siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s, a photo of a half-ruined post office with three items of graffiti written on its wall captured the imagination of the world. The first graffito read “This is Serbia!”; the second stated “This is Bosnia”. And someone scrawled underneath, “No, you idiots, it’s a post office!”

• The Obama campaign’s ‘unsung hero’

  Very interesting article about Jeffrey Berman, Barack Obama’s director of delegate selection…

• Why Ireland must say ‘Yes’ to Lisbon

  Andrew Duff (MEP) on the Lisbon Treaty and the upcoming referendum in Ireland and why the Irish eurosceptics are wrong.

• Ukraine: A lynchpin in Europe’s ‘Manifest Destiny’?

  “Global Power Europe” makes the case for a more decisive European approach towards Ukraine. And this “firm commitment” is EU accession..

• Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation

  Another shocking story on human rights in the US: “The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.”

• Is European democracy promotion on the wane? (pdf)

  A CEPS research paper that looks at “serious limits across three strands of democracy policy – the magnitude of incentives offered in return for democratic change, the degree of critical pressure exerted for democratic reform and the scale of European democracy funding.”

• EU Funds in Central and Eastern Europe: Cohesion or Collision?

  This interactive map developed by CEE Bankwatch Network and Friends of the Earth Europe shows 50 damaging projects planned or already underway in Central and Eastern Europe at a total cost to EU taxpayers of €10 billion.

• Questions raised over EU diplomatic service

  The new Lisbon treaty is (probably deliberately!) very vague on the issue of a EEAS (European External Action Service). Indeed, clarity is something else, as some of the rather basic things still need to be solved, for example the interaction between the Council, the Commission and the member state staff, the role of the European Parliament, the formal title of the head of the missions and the formal title of the delegations…as well as the question “where the EEAS and the foreign policy chief will be situated.” Luckily, only in 2010 the final proposal need to be finalised.

• The surprise that may await Europe

  Good and comprehensive analysis of the election results in Serbia.

• Global Power Europe: The return of ‘History’?

  “Do we—Europeans—have the political vision and will to make it happen? Do we want to remain the shapers of history, or would we rather continue under the delusions so ruefully picked apart by people like Kagan?” (…) On the present trajectory, of declining European military budgets; ill-equipped and under-prepared armed forces; poorly crafted foreign and security policies, particularly on the part of European Union Member States like Germany, Italy and Spain, one could be forgiven for thinking that the European Union’s future looks rather bleak. And as Kagan warns us, we need more than hope to prove them wrong…”

• Medvedev’s Russia

  A bunch of experts share their views about the new Russian president and topics ranging from Putin and developments in the Russian society and economy to the Caucasus and relations with Europe, Asia, USA … even a short paragraph on McCain and Obama.

• Mark Mardell – A presidential game of musical chairs

  The latest rumours about the new EU top jobs…Barroso, Ahern, Rasmussen, Blair, Juncker?…but it is also true that the front runners never win!

• The Borders of the European Union: Zagreb, 1. June 2011

  The Balkans in 2011? – A rather pessimistic (but realistic?) outlook on the future political developments on the Balkans…

• Belarus: RFE/RL Cites Online ‘Solidarity’ In Face Of Cyberattack

  Another cyberattack… exactly on the day of the 22nd ‘anniversary’ of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. RFE planned live coverage of a protest rally in Minsk. Not that difficult to figure ot who was behind it…

• The Guest Blog : Le Monde goes Europe, the UK goes chicken

  Is the “Bureau of European Policy Advisers” (BEPA) of the European Commission (also known as the internal think tank) about to start blogging or is it only a guest post? Anyway, some good points on communicating and debating the EU and the usual problems and chances associated with it…

• Serbs to have easier travel in EU

  Another “carrot” for the undecided voters…

• ECFR: The new Russian presidency: Medvedev 1.0 or Putin 2.0?

  some “informed speculation” about the future of Putin and co.

• Time to think of a strategic bargain with Russia (pdf)
  

  Michael Emerson (CEPS) on the need of strategic relations between the West and Russia.

• Nicolas Sarkozy’s Foreign Policy: Gaullist by Any Other Name – Brookings Institution

  Is Sarkozy an Atlanicist, Gaullist or even a Sarkozyst?

I have been looking at some EU news services lately and as a result I created a EU universe (www.netvibes.com/eu) which brings together most of the available official EU – RSS feeds. So please tell me what you think about it! Although there are numerous (but quite hidden!) feeds on the europa.eu page, I still wonder whether the Commission has realised its potential here. Most of the times, traditional press releases are put into the feeds. But RSS could be used to track policy proposals within the Commission (green paper- consultation-white paper). Anyway, I will cover this topic more extensively in another post later this week!

Now there is also a social bookmarking service for EU related news and blogs: Eurovalley, give it a try, of course everything is still in beta! eufeeds has a collection of over 300 newspapers and it is updated every 20 minutes: interesting idea but unfortunately there seems to be no easy option to export an individual feed or a selection of feeds. Have you ever heard of the Europe Media Monitor? It seems to be one of these hidden Commission projects but I must say it looks quite promising especially when you need to monitor EU news.

So lets turn to our “favourite” treaty….Nicolas Whyte writes about the Lisbon Treaty here and the ISN wonders whether the Lisbon treaty makes the ESDP more Coherent and Capable? Stanley’s blog asks: EU Foreign Ministers: an endangered species?

Two interesting articles regarding EU funds and budget: Fraud and responsibility for EU funds on Jan’s EUblog and EuropesWorld: Why the EU may never get its accounts straight

What is a “Societas Europaea (SE)” ? It took the EU 30 years to decide on it…and now, there are only around 150 SE in total (EU-wide). But things might improve as local businesses becoming more ‘European’, well at least in the Czech Republic.

Richard Lewis blogs about Frattini’s proposals regarding tougher EU immigration rules. America plays divide and rule is a fascinating article on a diplomatic fight. And the “quote of the month” award goes to Jonathan Faull, a European Commission director general:

“We don’t negotiate matters that are dealt with in Washington with the state of California. That would be disrespectful and we expect the United States to be similarly respectful of our law and system.”

Two articles that remind us of the last couple of years in US politics: Think Progress » The legacy of Bush’s presidency & Iraq: The War Card – The Center for Public Integrity

Here is an interesting article on The Unravelling of Russia’s Europe Policy

Brendan Donnelly writes on the Social Europe Blog about The Reform Treaty and its Impact on the EU Institutions

ECAS blog asks: Why are there transitional arrangements for Romanian and Bulgarian workers?

The Centre for European Reform analyses Poland’s bold new foreign policy

And last but not least, two research papers: The role of UK academics as security
‘experts’ for news media and Leading think tanks in the world (.pdf)

So, what happened last year? … of course a non exhaustive list

The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2007

An Interview with the “Person of the Year 2007″: Putin and the Time Magazine

Can it get any better? well, we have to wait and see:

Awaiting us in 2008…

The world in 2008: a year and an era | openDemocracy

The EU will have to deal with the ratification process of the “Treaty of Lisbon”:

The Treaty of Lisbon – How much ‘Constitution’ is left? An Overview of the Main Changes

Understanding the Lisbon Treaty

Last but not least, an interesting article about Italy:

In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment – New York Times

…… and a happy new year to everyone!

The signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights caused some turmoil in the European Parliament.

This is the Treaty of Lisbon. And here is a useful collection of papers and studies dealing with the new treaty.

ISN Security Watch reports about a surprise court decision that the UN does not have legal immunity regarding the Srebrenica massacre.

A new partnership between the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): “A counter-weight to what Russian politicians describe as the NATO-centric model of the world” ?

And Public Policy Watch writes about: Moldovan Democracy: How Amazing Is It?; the second part deals with the amazing Christmas tree story… On this note: Europe’s tallest Christmas tree can be found in Bucharest!

A new Euro referendum is coming up: Denmark is to hold new euro vote

Educating Russia looks at the education reform in Russia: A new history book for example claims: “We see that practically every significant deed is connected with the name and activity of President V.V. Putin”

An interesting article about the civil society development in South Eastern Europe by Risto Karajkov : NGOs in the Balkans: Too Much of a Good Thing?

The debate about the reform of the European Commission continues: In defence of national interests

And now to something completely different: Jimi Hendrix: Live at Monterey!

Normally, I do not post software links in this blog but this is an exception. I came across the Firefox extension Zotero – The Next-Generation Research Tool. Looks quite useful, has anyone tried to work with it? How are your experiences with this research tool? I would be very interested…please feel free to post a comment

Apparently, Commissioner Reding is planning to make DRM interoperable. Indeed a great idea! Let’s hope she can resist the intense lobbying that has probably already started…

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to read this interesting paper, but it is definitely an interesting topic: “The Capacity of Central and East European Interest Groups to Participate in EU Governance”

These days there is a lot of talk in Russia about the idea of establishing a sort of ‘National Leader’. But we might need to wait until the results of the Duma elections are known to see what Putin plans to do… Talking about the upcoming Duma elections, Global Voices reports that the Russian blogosphere is debating whether To Vote, or Not to Vote? Moreover, Duma elections will be held without OSCE election observers.

And Joseph S. Nye tries to convince us about the Soft Power of the United Nations.

Last week we heard two supposedly important EU speeches by Nicolas Sarkozy and David Miliband. Both speeches were rather uninspired and aimed at a home constituency in my opinion. The only interesting fact was that, before David Miliband said ‘no’ to a European superpower, apparently he had to water down his speech.

The anticipated unilateral declaration of independence in Kosovo is coming closer, so is it the beginning of the end for the Kosovo question? asks WSI Brussels Blog.

What are the consequences of the OSCE decision not to monitor the upcoming Russian parliamentary elections? – Crooked Timber – Russian election watch.

I recently discovered “The List Archive of Foreign Policy”! Check it out if you want to know who are the ‘Most Eligible World Leaders‘ or the longest serving ‘Presidents for Life.

Somehow that brings us to the best conspiracy theories, a very amusing overview at bookforum.com.

And last but not least: The Berlaymonster reports about EU plans to harmonise conference organisation. Definitely, a milestone!

Back to the people at TOL Romania It would all be about Nov 25 in Romanian politics if the “Italian hysteria” had not been dominating the political debate in Romania. Anyway, elections for the European Parliament as well as a much debated referendum will be held on the same day – but apparently in different polling stations.

Belgium crisis: Does the tradition of compromise losing its force in Belgium asks the International Herald Tribune. Is it time to say Bye bye Belgium? (which by the way is a nice article, but the author forgets to mention the fact that the “BHV problem” also goes back to a ruling of the constitutional court…)

Colorado Springs and the Politics of Conformity | TPMCafe The phenomenon of political “group-think” and how it relates to the Internet. Is it the same in the “Euroblogosphere”?

Sarkozy and the EU – His image as a reformer is only an image and that is why Europe should be wary of France’s reformist president.

The surprise of vice-chancellor Müntefering’s resignation in Germany: Merkel loses ‘Mr. Grand Coalition’ Is that the beginning of the end of Merkel’s coalition government?

Guardian Abroad: Slow seduction in Belgium After all, living as an xpat in Brussels is apparently not that bad… I am still not at that point though!

Balkan nations put cultural stars on a pedestal What does it mean to erect statues of Rocky Balboa, Bruce Lee and Tarzan?

New scenarios to keep Putin in power: de facto “National Leader” or back in the Kremlin?

Is Russia Becoming Our Enemy Again? A debate about a “new cold war”, also as a mp3 file!

And: good news for Eastern Europe: Big bang enlargement for Schengen zone agreed