Europe in blogs - Euroblogs (13): A month full of hearings

It has been a long time since the last Europe in blogs - Euroblogs - so I thought it's worth looking back to January, a month in which Commissioners were given a mouthful by MEPs and bloggers.

But let's first start at the end of the month when Nosemonkey answered questions about euroscepticism and why he isn't one despite the fact that "The EU is flawed", while College of Europe alumnus Jon Worth seemed to imply that by cutting stipends for British students at the College, the UK government was triggering even more euroscepticism.

At the same time, people within the EU institutions were having different kinds troubles: Some, like the EP web editors, had a "Blank sheet moment" - probably because they were still drunk from the sixpack of brilliant videos they had made for Christmas.

Others, seeing all this joy and freedom in the EP, didn't want to stay in their dark web 0.9 caves and demanded to get some Web 2.0 sun from the always shining President Barroso. And, Talking about Europe, EU official Antonia provoked quite a bunch of discussions when she asked readers to share practical problems with the so-called "free movement" within the EU.

Yet, as I said, probably the most important events (did anybody outside Brussels care?) in January 2010 were the hearings of the designated European Commissioners in the European Parliament:

• Grahnlaw: here, here
• La Oreja de Europa: here
• Stephen Spillane: here
• Europaeum: here, here
• Coulisses de Bruxelles: here, here, here, here, here, here, here
• The European Citizen: here
• Matizandrea's Blog: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
• L'Europe en Blogs: here, here
• Le Taurillon: here
• EU Law: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
• The Lobby: here, here
• ResEuropa: here
• Eurotribune: here (see discussions below the posts!)
• Planet in Progress: here
• Brussels Blog (FT): here, here, here
• CEP blog: here, here, here
• Behind the Scenes: here, here, here
• Charlemagne: here, here
• Regards Citoyens: here, here
• Glennis Willmott (MEP): here
• Europeanization: here
• La Com européenne: here, here, here
• Meyers Europablog: here, here, here, here
• Berlaymonster: here, here
• The Euros: here
• Whatseuropinion: here
• Kartellblog: here, here, here, here
• Cosmetic Uprise: here
• Brussels Sunshine: here, here, here, here
• me: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here

I suppose that these are not all euroblog posts on the hearings, so please feel free to add missing blogs/links in the comments; I'll add them to the post later on. What we can see from those blog posts already linked is that women power dominated the blog debates around the hearings: Ashton, Kroes and Jeleva were the winners of January's attention competition, though Jeleva might have liked a little less of that. But I can assure you that this wasn't our - the eurobloggers' - fault. I think. In total, this was quite a fun month for blogging and European politics, and it's a pity that it's just the Brussels crowd that noticed. In five years, I want public viewing all across Europe for these hearings - maybe that is something the EP and Commission web editors could work for...

Now I have to come to an end because people don't read long blog posts. Europe in blogs - Euroblogs will come back soon, although last time I promised this, it took quite a while. So until I come back, keep this final remark in mind: Don't forget to rebut EuroCr*p in Social Media! Thanks.

PS.: Did I mention Mr Bean? No? Good, because Marcelino, Joe Litobarski [offline] and Mathew have said everything necessary.