New borders in the Union?

As an EU citizen you tend to forget that borders still exist, and usually you only realise this when you leave the Union.

But in his latest post, Jon Worth is rightfully complaining about the following incident:

"On the Amsterdam-München CityNightLine service last weekend Netherlands Police boarded the train at Venlo and shone a flashlight in everyone’s faces at the border."

And since I had similar experiences in the night train from Paris to Barcelona and in a normal train from the Netherlands to Germany, I also ask myself whether the member states are trying to establishing new borders within the Union, and in particular within the Schengen area?

If they are doing this, I'd expect the EU institutions to intervene - especially since border controls re-establish the impression that borders are not disappearing, and this would definitely go against the goals and ideals of the Union.

Ever tried to find the ECR Group in the European Parliament on the net?

As you may have noticed, the European Parliament has seen the birth of a new political group right of the EPP after this year's elections.

Fellow euroblogger Jon Worth landed a beautiful coup showing the lack of professionalism of this new formation that includes the British Tories (highlights by me, one link added):

"The new group took the name European Conservatives and Reformists (a contradiction in terms even in the name) but no-one thought to register any domain name for the new group before its establishment. So on 22nd June I had a look around to see what I could find – ecrg.info was still available and I purchased it and registered it with Google.

Now more than 3 months on there is still no official ECR Group website as far as I can see, and the single page of my website has risen slowly up the Google results, so much so that I’m starting to get mails via the website from all sorts of organisations asking for information about the ECR’s MEPs and positions and even asking for speakers for conferences. I’ve now politely e-mailed all of these people informing them that they are victims of cybersquatting and asking the valid question:

[H]ow can any political organisation that has gone three months without a web presence be taken at all seriously?"

A pertinent question asked, not least since there have been doubts from the beginning whether the group would be viable at all. And at least on the net - if they don't have a website hidden somewhere where no one finds them - the group seems non-existent.

But maybe they don't care, and non-visibility is part of the Conservative-Reformist strategy? - Only time will tell...

Generation 2.0: Political individuals in the 21st century (hat tip to Jon Worth)

Jon Worth has written an article on political individuals in the 21st century that I can almost completely sign.

It is titled " It’s not a generational issue, it’s more important than that" and the main paragraph for me is the following:

"Blogs, Twitter and e-Communications more generally have given people like Eurosocialiste, Boris Wandoren, Kosmopolit, Julien Frisch and I the kind of public voice we would never otherwise have had.

We’re young(-ish) individuals, answerable almost uniquely to ourselves, people strong views. In times past we would have been the annoying, nagging people at party political meetings, trying to hold everyone else to account. The internet means we have a wider audience to rant air our concerns.

We’re fine to argue back and forth on Twitter, because we’re the sort of people who would be arguing about how to make the world a better place over a coffee or a beer anyway; doing it online is hence really natural.

I totally agree with Jon, although I think that it is still a generational issue as I have written in a comment to Jon's post:

"In our generation, people like us have the technical possibilities to remain active although classical party structures are not what attracts us.

This is why some of us – still a small elite – can express their position more freely than within the compromise-driven and promotion-oriented political environment the generations before us have to live with (if they don’t learn to creatively use the opportunities they would have)."

The generation 2.0 of political individuals is using its freedom to freely express its views on politics and political ideals; we are using the means we dispose of to say what we wouldn't say in the standard political environment - not because we wouldn't be ready to defend our ideals but because time and circumstances would limit our focus and distract our attention from what we find important.

The problem with the EU is that it is even more 1.0 than national party politics - more compromises, more technocratic understanding, more self-limitation due to false diplomacy. In some ways, blogging and tweeting are the only real means to express true political positions on EU-related matters, the rest is bargaining and power plays.

And since we are bored with these, we are here, discussing openly in the widths of the internets, no matter whether the Generation 1.0 (beta version) listens or not.

The next European Commission: Th!nk09 initiative

I am at the finale of the Th!nk about it blogging competition.

One of the ideas we have come up over lunch is to try to find out who will be possible Commissioners from all 27 member countries in the next European Commission.

We want to use collective knowledge of Th!nkers and the wider blogosphere to come up with a list of possible candidates before the national media will have managed to figure it out. And I am sure we can do it.

So please go to Jon Worth's blog and comment on his article, informing who could be the next Commissioner from your country.

Bloggingportal.eu - the European blogosphere 2.1

Thanks to Jon Worth, Kosmopolit and Bente, the EU blogosphere has entered into a new phase:

http://www.bloggingportal.eu

In fact, the site has been quasi-online already for some time in its alpha version, so the surprise is not so big and the design has remained more or less the same over the last months.

Nevertheless, the fact that almost 300 European blogs in different languages have been compiled means that this is the largest aggregation of EU and European blogs I know. In addition, a team of editors will chose the most interesting posts of the day and publish them on the front page of the portal, easing the choice for readers who are new to the EU blogosphere or who do not have the time to follow all the blogs at once.

I hope that through this tool, the interest in the EUropean blogosphere will raise, especially ahead of the European Parliament Elections this year!

Jon Worth did it: The Czech EU-Council gaffe-o-meter

O yes, folks, he has done it again, this Mr Jon Worth, the German-speaking, inline skating British social democrat who thinks that there is no god but Barroso: He is attacking the authorities!

Look what he has done: A Czech EU-Council-Presidency gaffe-o-meter!

I think that this is outrageous, he is proposing bloggers to use it when they write about yet another faux pas of the present Council Presidency! Outrageous!

Don't use this gaffe-o-meter, because it will harm the Czech Republic, the European Union, your blog, the whole euroblogosphere! Don't use it!!!

British journalism and the European Union: Shocking!

Having read this article by the British daily The Observer, Jon Worth concludes:

"How, how, how can a major UK newspaper get away with publishing something that is so completely and utterly rubbish? No wonder the UK population is bewildered by the EU when paid journalists cannot even be bothered to do a bit of basic research about what the rules are."

Read both, the Observer article and Jon's reply - and you will understand why reading European blogs sometimes is much better than reading a national newspaper writing about European issues...

Tracking: European Parliament elections 2009 (32): Campaign predictions

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For a February 2009 opinion poll predicting the outcomes of the elections go here.
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Jon is predicting the content of the European election campaigns:

The EP election debate, in as far as there will be one about EU matters, will be dominated by a debate to what extent the EU should influence our lives. Eurosceptics will bemoan the ‘Brussels Bureaucrats’ taking away national power, and the governments in power won’t contradict this to say that it was their permanent representations that gave the go ahead to everything anyway. In the meantime the mainstream parties will put forward safe candidates that are not going to do anything radical on the election campaign trail.

I am afraid Jon is right and will be right. Yawn!

Welcome 2009, European Year of Creativity and Innovation!

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

Explaining ALDE ads (discussion on Jon Worth's euroblog)

A short but interesting discussion has evolved on Jon Worth's blog around the financing of ALDE advertisements on the web and in the city of Brussels as well as on the editorial independence of of EUobserver and The Parliament.

If you can contribute, please join!