Ironically I am blogging this while sitting at exactly the same (and now truly) legendary table in a flat in London… Well, in many ways I would not be here without bloggingportal and all the people I met through the project. So thanks a lot for all your help and support!

We have learnt a lot over the last three years – especially how not to do things. But I guess this is how it has to be. The problem is still the same: We are a bunch of enthusiastic people without a real structure, without money and without much time on our hands. It is a bit like herding anarchist and hungry cats…

So what does the future hold for bloggingportal? I  blogged about our problems in the past and called for a bigger EU blogosphere. As you can imagine not much has been solved – although EU blogging has arguably grown somehwat. To get an idea about the debate on the future of bloggingportal head over to Brusselsblogger,  Ronny Patz  and Mathew Lowry’s Tagsmanian Devil who all have written more substantial blog posts on the issue.

If you are reading this and you are thinking “well this blogginportal stuff may be a fun thing to do…” – why not get in touch ?  I think we do need people with fresh ideas who are motivated to invest some time in developing the website as well as the bloggingportal concept (whatever that is…). Because it is simple: The media landscape has changed, blogging has changed – even the EU has changed (well, ok this is  debatable!). So maybe bloggingportal needs to change too!

PS. I am not dead – honest. Pseudo-regular blogging resumes as soon as possible… (Reason: new job in London & flat-hunting)

In case you have not seen it, a couple of days ago my post on German UN diplomacy on Libya was featured here. Actually a funny thing because it is one of those posts that took me 10 minutes to write – which does explain the amount of  typos and the general incoherence of the piece. But well, SPON thought it was good enough for their press review. And to put it into perspective: Spiegel Online is the biggest and most influential news website in Germany.

And being featured as the only blog among the likes of Le Monde, The Guardian, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Der Standard and dw-world is a nice achievement for your humble blogger.

Thanks a lot SPON for these 15 minutes of fame.

Anyway, it was a world premiere:  The  first time ever that bloggers were accredited (as bloggers!) to an official EU institution! OK, it was just a pilot project but nevertheless a very interesting endeavour – now a lot depends on whether the EU institutions continue the process and whether there are actually enough bloggers that would be interested.  At the moment I am quite optimistic for the former but not for the latter.

If you have not followed the story: The idea of getting a press accreditation for bloggers at EU institutions has been discussed for quite a while in the blogosphere and within the institutions.  The #EUpilot however would not have happened without the Hungarian Council Presidency.  As part of their “Blogger outreach” (also a novelty in the institutional machinery in Brussels!) they organised several background briefings with Bloggingportal.eu editors and other bloggers (unfortunately I missed all of them so far…) Anyway blogger press accreditation would have not been possible without these meetings and the determined officials of the Hungarian Council presidency.  Thanks a lot for this – and let’s hope other presidencies and other institutions (!) learn from this pilot project! (It is actually a weird twist that the most secretive EU institution was involved in the pilot project – and not the most obvious one: the European Parliament!)

What happened in the Council you might ask? Well, this week there were two bloggers that covered the EU Competitiveness Council (and parts of the Foreign Affairs Council). But you should really read the original stuff including the preparatory blogging and the live tweeting:

Preparatory blogging: I, II (and a  German translation!)

Live blogging day 1

Live blogging day 2

#EUpilot on twitter

So, thanks a lot @ronpatz and @europasionaria for a great blogging and tweeting coverage! Let’s hope that some journalists read the stuff and re-consider their strategies on how to cover council meetings – and how to make it more interactive and interesting. It is really not rocket science

But why is this pilot project so important?

My two basic (and possibly naive) cents:  Treating bloggers like journalists is important because of two reasons. First of all, bloggers are citizens and basically every citizen can become a blogger without much effort. (ok, you need to open a blog and start writing…) The point is that not only journalists but also non-journalists have access to formerly restricted institutional environments. You don’t need to work for a newspaper or have a press pass to have access. Second, it can be a (small and symbolic) step for  institutions to open up to normal citizens. Not because it is that exciting to cover press conferences and do some doorstep interviews – no because it can help demystifying  institutional practices and it can become useful in challenging myths. It might even improve press coverage and can increase public scrutiny (at least theoretically). Obviously if we think about transparency in EU institutions this is hardly enough – a lot of other stuff remains to be done!

Now, what is the the way forward?

First of all, I think, we need to spread the word a bit. For the EU institutions it was quite an achievement. At the same time it is good to know that with a bit of determination a handful of officials can make things happen. So please spread the word.

The aim is to get a permanent, institutionalised and easy procedure that would allow bloggers to have the same rights as accredited journalists within the EU institutions.

But we also need to get more bloggers on board. Not only ‘eurobloggers’ but also subject specialists. Most EU policies are sector specific, so coverage is often difficult for generalists – and generalists do not necessarily contribute to a better media coverage. We hope there will be similar opportunities so if you are a blogger and you want to get involved in future events and campaigns do follow bloggingportal and/or contact us!

The problem is obviously Brussels. Most bloggers that might consider participating in such a process do not live in Brussels. Travelling to some EU meeting is out of the question – it is a budget and a time issue. Most bloggers do have proper jobs. So even if the EU opens up for bloggers I suspect that not many will take advantage of this.  Somehow a blogging link between the EU level and the national and subject spheres needs to be established. Any ideas are most appreciated – although there are enough ideas but not enough people that get involved.

There is also the argument that blogging is on the decline because of twitter, tumblr and facebook. I am not sure whether blogging about politics  (as political arguments usually need more than 140 characters!) is actually affected by this trend although it is true that the EU twittersphere seems to be growing. OK, blogging is not for everyone and not everyone is motivated to blog regularly. However, if there was a bigger EU-blogosphere it would probably motivate more people to start blogging!

But how to create a bigger EU blogosphere? I don’t really have an answer for that but somehow I have the feeling that we should step up our efforts to ‘recruit’ more bloggers and to keep active bloggers motivated! Especially the community building aspect of bloggingportal.eu has been a success – albeit with a limited impact.

If we think about target groups there are several groups that spring to mind:

(1) I think students are an important target group  (especially in European studies, journalism, politics, economics, social sciences…). At the same time it would be good to have people from other more specialized subjects in order to strengthen the EU policy-blogging scene (for example energy, competition, single market, environment, fisheries, agriculture, standardization issues…). What I also would like to see is more local and regional blogs that could evaluate  EU funding projects from a non-Brussels perspective or provide a regional links to EU issues. What needs to be done to motivate students to start a blog? And even if students start blogging – how can they be motivated to keep blogging after they receive their degree?

(2) The second big target group could be the thousands of interns in Brussels and elsewhere. There are quite a lot of internships in the EU bubble. They should (on average!) have slightly more free-time than other people and could use the blog for job hunting if they manage to create some buzz in their field.  Especially in Brussels I think there could be a huge potential as many interns work in EU related jobs. Maybe blogging could give some of them the necessary extra qualification to succeed in the job market! But how to reach them and how to motivate them?

(3) Blogging should not be restricted to the younger generation. People that work  in a job that has something to do with the EU or linked to EU issues are missing in the blogosphsere. Private and professional blogs are also not present in the EU blogging scene. Lots of people that blog on national politics do it as a hobby – is the EU not a topic that can be a good blogging hobby? Generally, it seems that within this target group EU blogging is not seen as a very useful thing to do. But how to change this?

(4) Academics. This is another complex story and I have first hand experience with ideasoneurope.eu The main problem is that the academic community in Europe does not appreciate blogging. And there is also a lack of true European public intellectuals, which is surprising as the internet in particular would be the perfect arena, but again, it is not happening. Partly, because the concept of a “public intellectual” does not seem to be popular in Europe -  but also because a lot of  academics are not familiar with the internet. (I am not kidding!) So, if you are an academic and you blog instead of writing a journal article you are basically wasting your time and it does not seem to help your career. But what can be done to change this?

(5) Retired professionals. With or without a EU job background. Is it possible to motivate this age group to take up blogging as a new hobby?

(6) [Update] Civil Society. There are many NGOs that could use blogging and social media to get their points across. It is a cheap and rather effective tool to engage with the public.

(7) [Update] Think Tanks. I argued before that think tanks should start thinking about blogs and social media. Especially if a think tank wants to reach a wider or specialized audience. Only very few EU affairs think tanks write a blog or use any social media tools. CER or ECFR are good examples how a think tank blog could look like.

(8) Existing bloggers in national blogospheres. There a many bloggers that write about the EU in a national context but they do not engage with a wider European blogosphere.  They might just write a couple of posts a year about the EU. But nobody outside their national blogosphere takes notices. At the same time many bloggers writing in national context are not aware of the EU stuff. How can that be changed?

(9)  Existing Eurobloggers. This is the big question about motivation. What needs to be done to create a system to keep people motivated. For me it is the community aspect, meeting people in real life, doing projects, talking to people.If that is part of the answer, we need to create more possibilities to move the blogging experience into the real world. And what would be the role of the various blogging communities such as  bloggingportal.eu, ideasoneurope.eu, blogactiv.eu, cafebabel.com or 27etc.? Can we create better synergies and learn from each other?

There seem to be several interrelated problems (that also have not changed for the last years):

• How to motivate active eurobloggers and how to keep them interested?
• How can EU topics be integrated in national blogospheres? And how can the link between different national spheres and between the national and the European level be organised?
• How to get more people interested in blogging about the EU?

A post with more questions than answers. If you have any answers or any idea how to approach any of the issues raised in this post – just post a comment!

Second impression: Why is there no buzz, neither online nor offline? No comments, nothing! (to be fair: this is difficult after 1 day) But more importantly: Why have all essays been published on the same day? Why not play a bit more with the opportunities of social media?  From a PR perspective this is a wasted opportunity. There are quire a few possibilities to create a buzz around your new publication on EU affairs. So what would I do if I was in charge of “What the EU did next” or something similar?

1. I would probably use ideasoneurope.eu or blogactiv.eu to host the blog as it will only have 12 blog posts – maybe with a bit of follow-up activity.  It is quite difficult to make a new blog popular and if it is a project with a limited life span (and you don’t have an established think tank blog!), it makes more sense to use an established blogging platform to spread the word! Use the existing readership for maximum exposure.

2. Post one blog post every couple of days.  That gives readers more time to read – and the debate usually focuses on one essay for a few days. Moreover, people look forward to the next piece and the project has the possibility to grow as readers tend to build up trust and recommend the content to others. Obviously you should only publish the pdf at the end of the blogging exercise!

3. Make sure that the authors will react to comments. And you should also try to motivate your think tank colleagues to post comments. Especially if you have a pamphlet with several authors!  Commenting is an important part of blogging and think tanks should embrace this opportunity to start a debate online.  After all, this is how you make your work known and increase your public profile as a “dynamic and modern” think tank.

4. Create a twitter account and ‘advertise’ your blog, start discussing your themes with others. I think twitter is much more useful than facebook to target the classic think tank audience. Journalists and decision makers are more likely to be on twitter than anwhere else. Especially if your project is a pamphlet with 12-essays, no need to create a facebook profile. But you could use the existing profiles of the respective think tanks to circulate your new publication!

5. Pitch some of the essays to media outlets. National media, European media, whoever is interested! Do some radio and TV interviews.  (OK, to be fair, they might have done it, I just haven’t seen it! And the pamphlet was only published this week!)

6. Do all the classic think tank PR work but do mention your “innovative website” where “everyone can join the debate”. This is a no-brainer really: Conferences, events,  mailing lists, cocktail parties etc.  Maybe not only in your home town but also in Brussels, London, New York, Davos…depending on what you want to achieve and what kind of budget you have. If you don’t have a budget, why not organise a online conference or an online chat? This could also lead to some youtube videos that can easily be posted on the blog. Some people rather want to watch a debate or a lecture or listen to a podcast. The production of such content does not cost a lot of money.

I think think tanks can still learn a lot when it comes to social media/blogging and how to integrate it with the work they are doing. It can be useful to strengthen the public profile of a think tank and to increase your visibility. Very few European think tanks blog or tweet in strategic way. On bloggingportal there is a (incomplete) list of European think tanks that run a blog. On twitter it is a bit difficult to get an overview. An attempt to map think tanks has been made here but I have not found a list of  EU think tanks or think tank staff.

But now I need to read the pamphlet. Let’s hope the content as interesting and engaging as the first impression of the blog!

If you’ve seen, heard or read an outstanding report on the European Union that deserves wider recognition, then we’d like to hear from you.

The Reporting Europe Prize honours outstanding critical or supportive journalism on any aspect of the European Union.

Nomination deadline: 4th March 2011

Previous winners include Allan Little (BBC) James Kanter(International Herald Tribune) and David Rennie, (The Economist). It is worth noting that David Rennie got the award for his Charlemagne blog/column.  A couple of years ago Nosemonkey was also nominated for an award.  It seems that the jury considers blogs  – so if you remember any outstanding blog post/blogs do not hesitate to nominate a blog!

We just launched some sort of editorial blog called “The Ideas on Europe Blog” (yes that is a very creative name . The main aim of this blog is to discuss how blogs and social media can be used by academics and researchers that work in European studies. The first blog post deals with ‘blogs as a teaching tool‘, however, more will follow soon. We also ‘relaunched’  the ideasoneurope twitter feed – so make sure you follow us @ideasoneurope.

Ideas on Europe is a collaborative website – and so is the editorial blog. If you have any suggestions or requests what kind of topics you would like us to write about – just get in touch with us. Moreover, we are always happy to discuss guest blog posts – for example if you are a blogging researcher/PhD student and you want to share your experiences regarding academic blogging, let us know.

Just a reminder that Ideas on Europe is a group blog for researchers dealing with Europe and/or the European Union. So if you would like to create a blog at ideasoneurope.eu just sign up here!

Bloggingportal.eu proudly presents its first ever public event!

Join us for the UK/EU bloggingportal conference in London on December 10th!

Everything you need to know can be found here.

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.

To mark this anniversary the European Journalism Centre (EJC) published a nice article about the project. In a way we reached the aim there:  Bloggingportal.eu as a “featured resource” for journalists all over Europe

Don’t forget to stay updated with bloggingportal.eu issues:  You can become a fan of bloggingportal on facebook and you can follow us on twitter! If you are a twitter addict you might want to check out our editors choice on twitter!

We are also looking for new editors and volunteers that would like to get involved. Just write us an email and we will get back to you!

The focus this time is much broader and goes beyond Europe, however,  from a European perspective it would be very interesting to have someone covering EU climate change policy and  looking at how the EU  approaches the COP 15 negotiations in Copenhagen…

Check out the details:

TH!NK2 Climate Change is a 3 month blogging competition with a focus on UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009. 81 bloggers from Europe with featured guests from India, China Brazil and the USA, representing the world’s biggest players in climate policy, will come together on the European Journalism Centre‘s thinkaboutit.eu platform, to exchange ideas and debate the issues of climate change.

Participants are encouraged to report about stories in their own back yards; to bring out the local side of a global issue. The aim is to create a portal into the minds of 81 people, to show how each one experiences the effects of Climate Change policies every day.

Go to the official website to find out more!

… a critical look at the disappointing turnout figures and the reasons behind it.

… a sharp analysis of  the results in different countries preferably in a comparative manner. You know the typical post about whether the successful party is in government or not and whether a national election is on the horizon.

… criticising the national focus of the election. Trying to show that the EP elections should not be used as a  protest vote

… an analysis whether the left really lost and the right really won (+ mentioning the economic crisis) using some fancy tables with statistical figures

… an opinion about the eurosceptic parties and the right wing radicals. Maybe comparing the BNP with the various Freedom Parties and the Greater Romanian Party? ITS reloaded?

… something about the success of the Greens or whether the Pirate Party will have any impact in the Parliament.

… but also discussing strategies what should be done better next time, both at  European and National level, you know communicating the EU better bla bla bla

… reflecting on the campaigns and all the different online projects

… ranting about the ignorance of voters, the lack of political knowledge, or why the media fails to cover the EU with an example how different TV stations or newspapers covered the election night.

… writing something about the challenges of the next European Parliament.

… some general thoughts on Europe vs. the nation state. The typical article on European identity or the lack of it…

… I should mention the Lisbon Treaty and the proposed reforms and whether the election results make it more likely to get the treaty ratified:  Ireland, failure of Libertas, political survival possibilities of PM Brown in the UK and the referendum plans of Cameron. I should not forget Poland and Chech Republic.

… speculating about the political groups in the European Parliament and saying something about the new group led by Cameron

… I could also blame it on the weather, the economy, the Commission or the political elite.

I really should write something like that but somehow I cannot be bothered today. So I might postpone it  for a few days (or weeks…)!

In the meantime I will be reading blogs! But what are the blogs writing about the European Parliament elections and the results?

If you find any good analysis or a good rant about the European Parliament elections why not add it to the bloggingportal?  – It might give you bigger readership and, at the same time, you help generating an alternative source for EP election analysis from all over Europe covering as many languages as possible!

Feel free to add your own posts and/or posts you think are interesting to the list here! You can also add blogs that write about EU affairs on a regular basis!

Here is the link (there is also a fancy bookmarklet for your browser!): http://www.bloggingportal.eu/publish

Anyway, the big story for the EU blogosphere this week is the “successful hijacking” (in a positive sense!) of New Europe, a weekly newspaper that is seen as the main rival to European Voice. Your humble author played a little role in this and this blog was also mentioned in the editorial. The complete print version of New Europe can be found as an pdf file here.

The buzz around the EU blogosphere last week inspired New Europe to publish the editorial on The future of the EU blogosphere which is worth reading. Of course the launch of our bloggingportal was covered as well as with a full page article Political EU Blogs at your fingertips, Bloggingportal.eu launched. (with pictures in the print edition). And that is not all, Jon managed to get the strategically important last page of the paper with the Anyone but Barroso campaign and an article on David Cameron and the EPP issue.

On a different note: We are very pleased with the launch of bloggingportal.eu and we are looking forward to your suggestions how to improve the portal. We also have a facebook group, so feel free to join and make it even more popular by inviting your friends! Since it is quite a grassroot initative with only a handful of people involved and without any sponsers or institutions, things can take a bit longer but we try to be as efficient as possible. And of course we are still looking for editors in order to cover as many languages as possible! In case you have not noticed I also integrated the editors’ choice in the sidebar of this blog!

Th!nk about it has launched as well, the EJC powered EU blogging competition. The kick-off event in Brussels last week was quite a success and there was a lot of enthusiasm about blogging about the EU and the EP elections (sounds stange but it is true!). It is an interesting mix of new and experienced bloggers which should make it a good read. So make sure you check it regularly!

As some of you know, I am involved in the organisation/develpment of both projects (bloggingportal & thinkaboutit) so I am a bit biased here

We have been working on it for almost one year in our free time. At the moment we are aggregating almost 300 blogs and we are publishing a daily editors choice selection! Check it out!

It is beta, totally independent, without any sponsorship and we do welcome any comments and hints how to improve the site! So get in contact with us!

Thanks to Stefan for the excellent programming work and Jon Worth for starting the process! You can also follow us on twitter: @bloggingportal or join our facebook group!

Anyway it was fun, and I would like to welcome the new readers that found this blog through the competition. I hope you will enjoy reading our little blog. I also would like to thank everyone who voted for us and I also want to thank the blogs that endorsed Kosmopolito during the competition: here, here, here, here, here. Thanks a lot!

I suggest that next year the organisers should rethink the categories. “Best European Blog” should not be a category for different national blogs but for blogs with a European perspective since a few other EU blogs were competing in other categories. Moreover, the category also featured a very diverse bunch of blogs, from culture and food to politics and photos … Moreover, I still think the UK is part of Europe so the name of the category with the focus on “European but Non-UK” is quite baffling. Why does the UK have an own category but Germany, France and Italy not? Is it because of the US focus of the weblogawards?

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Another new toy I have discovered is twitter. So feel free to follow my musings here. I think the tool has potential for politics, journalism and public debate, although regarding EU issues twitter seems not to be mainstream yet…

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I am also looking for a good tool to track comments on different blog posts. What tools do you use to keep updated with discussions and comment threads? Feel free to share your strategies and suggestions in the comments!

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Some readers might be wondering what happened to the Kosmolinks. Problem is that diigo is not supporting self hosted blogs (?) and I am still looking for a tool that publishes weekly (and not daily!) linkrolls. Again, please share your suggestions in the comments.

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And here is a “happy new year” link treat for you: The quite hard to find EU calendar and searcheuropa, a search engine for the europa.eu page.

If you like this blog, we would be delighted if you considered voting for us! Polls open for 7 days and you can vote once every 24 hours from every computer you have access to. So feel free to vote on a daily basis

As you will see the “Best European Blog (Non UK)” category is very diverse and includes quite different  and also some rather big blogs which will make it difficult to win the category. And it is interesting to note that “European” actually means everything “non-UK”, so the finalists cannot really be compared. But to be a finalist (and the only one with a European/EU perspective!) is already a huge achievement for our little blog which back in 2007 won an award as the most underappreciated weblog in Europe…

There are some more EU focused blogs hidden in other categories: Nosemonkey is nominated for Best UK Blog and A Fistful of Euros is nominated for Best Business blog (I wonder how they ended up there).

Think about it! – The (first!) European Blogging Competition 2009 is a new blogging competition (some nice gadgets up for grabs) organised by the European Journalism Centre! The competition will start in February and will last until the EP elections. The exciting thing is that there will be a training component for all participants (after all it is run by a professional journalism organisation;-) You do not necessarily be a journalist or blogger, however you should be interested in EU affairs and the EP elections and you should feel enthusiastic about tryinig out blogging for a few months! If that sounds like a good idea to you can join the official facebook group and you can sign up here:

A dynamic community of bloggers, journalists and journalism students, a forum alive with debate and discussion, a creative portal to inspire youth involvement with the 2009 Parliamentary Elections, brought to you by the European Journalism Centre (EJC).

The goal is to get Europeans to THINK ABOUT IT and to express their views on Europe through an online blogging competition. The invited bloggers will cover, report, critique and debate on campaign issues and candidates. EJC editors will give feedback on the journalistic standards of the blog posts.

The EJC invites three bloggers from each EU member state for a two-day THINK ABOUT IT launch event in Brussels 25-27.1.2009. At the kick-off invitees are briefed on the European blogsphere, European Parliament, elections and on understanding the EU from a journalist’s perspective. The event also launches the blog contest, which invitees participate in throughout the official campaign season.

For more information just click here. Some fancy banners for your website/blog in various sizes can be found here.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog has been involved in the development of the project.

I hope you will enjoy Kosmopolito!

Stay tuned!