Europe in blogs - Euroblogs (7)

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For this seventh "Europe in blogs" you had to wait over a month. I blame the summer break. I blame the European Union. I blame my employer. And my friends. To make it short: I blame life.

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The big question is: Did anything happen over the last month?

Well, the first thing you might have noticed is that I have extended the title of this category to "Europe in blogs - Euroblogs". This reflects the focus more accurately, since I concentrate on Euroblogs, thus those blogs that have an explicit focus on Europe and European politics.

In addition, I am now using the hashtag #euroblogs on Twitter whenever commentating on blogs of this category or when promoting related content. I invite you to do the same, helping to build a recognisable label for what we do in so many different ways.

But let's start with some content:

One of the the most interesting developments in the euroblogging scene over this summer is the kick-off of Ideas on Europe which is meant to be a blogging platform for academics. Developed by Nosemonkey and promoted by Kosmopolit, we already witnessed a German diplomat writing about the role of embassies, a post about the role of the new President of the European Council under the Lisbon Treaty or an analysis of the influence of think tanks on the European security strategy.

Leaving the academic world, you could see that for the old boys among the eurobloggers the summer seems to be the time for reflection about identity and blogging:

• Nosemonkey favours history and multiple identities;
• Jon Worth, supported by his commentators, opts for multiple tracks influencing the Belgian society through European politics when running behind atheist busses on his inline-skates;
• Stephen Spillane prefers gay European flowers;
• freshly-married Joe Litobarski has pimped, personalised, professionalised, socialised, and contextualised his new appearance but thinks he is racist;
• the European Citizen is becoming a European being;
• Mark Mardell has left the eurobloggers for the US with a final essay on Europe
• and I, after coming back from my blogging holidays, immediately thought about abandoning my blog, which you can prevent by not reading what I write.

Another old boy, A Fistful of Euros, is slowly getting back on track with some interesting content after several months of rather uninteresting posts, e.g. with this one on the danger of voting at the Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan.

The euroblogging ladies have had very diverse experiences over the last month:

• Bente Kalsnes is returning to Norway after several years in Brussels;
• eurosocialiste is on summer holidays in Spain;
• and La Oreja de Europa was travelling to Brussels while being plagiarised by a public institution.

Altogether, the favourite topics over the last month were the summer break and holidays: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here - and also my opinion on the long summer break.

There was much more in European blogs over the last month (although not too much), but that's it for now. "Europe in blogs - Euroblogs" will be back soon.

PS.: The only one who does not take a break, neither politically nor as a blogger, is the Swedish foreign minster in charge of the EU Council Presidency: Carl Bildt.

With his activity level he embarrasses the whole euroblogging scene!