The Week in Bloggingportal: Pirates and Volcanoes! Yarr! Boom!

Pirate Party MEPs use less expenses than other MEPs because they save so much on fancy dress costumes! - Image CC / Flickr

Somebody told me recently that Google has updated the database for their Google Translate service and it now provides much more accurate translations. I’ve no idea if that’s true or not, but it certainly seems as if Google Translate is delivering better results. Take this post by a Swedish blogger working in the European Parliament in Brussels for the Swedish Pirate Party (their party motto: Yaaaaar! Hand over yer’ intellectual property rights, mateys!).

The Google translated version of the page into English is actually pretty readable for those of us landlubbers unlucky enough to be born outside of Sweden. It’s an interesting post about the future of book publishing, an industry being forced to walk the plank by the scabrous villainy of new technologies. Yaaaar! If ye want to complain about us not taking these issues seriously at Bloggingportal Towers, then fill out the comment form in Davey Jones’ Locker down below. Yaaaaarrr!!!

Then again, perhaps Google Translate is just in love with Sweden. Perhaps the Google code monkeys tech wizards are ABBA fans. That might explain why their service is so much better with Swedish than it is with German. This is how Google translated Johannes Zotti’s German post from the Cartel Blog ealier this week:

Interesting is not that competition and competitiveness are related in some way, of course they do that would be interesting but how the new Directorate General intends to make this interaction.

This must be, can only get better.

That last line is particularly hard on the brain. It’s as if Yoda joined ’90s pop band D:Ream for a demented rendition of the UK Labour party’s 1997 anthem. I’m reassured by our German-speaking editors that it’s a Google Translate error, and not at all representative of the way Johannes writes about EU Competition policy normally.

To be honest, sometimes it doesn’t matter whether you use Google Translate or not. EU-speak can be difficult to translate even when it’s written in your mother-tongue. Take this sentence from PoliSciZurich’s excellent post about Swedish-EU relations [Chief Editor: You mean Swiss-EU relations, you klutz!]:

Yet the structural problems result exactly from the clash of an institution of international law (bilateralism) with the EU’s system of supranational legal and political integration under conditions of asymmetric interdependence.

Asymmetricinterdewhatnow? Don’t be put off though – this is a really great post about why the Swiss approach to the EU is failing; despite remaining outside the EU, up to 50% of Swiss laws come from the EU whilst Switzerland has no voting rights, as a non-member, on how those laws are drafted. Switzerland has also failed to protect its banking sector, which was one of the most important reasons it remained outside the EU in the first place.

On the other hand, perhaps Google Translate has mood swings. This is a perfectly readable translation of a German post from MEP Martin Ehrenhauser (although it loses it slightly in the final paragraph). Ehrenhauser criticises the Bureau of European Policy Advisors for being a “non-transparent and exclusive body” with a bloated budget which it spends paying money to external consultants that were involved in the financial crisis in America. Ehrenhauser doesn’t pull his punches – because he then goes on to criticise one of his fellow MEPs for being a lobbyist in disguise for the lumber and furniture industry. All that in a three paragraph post.

Speaking of lobbyists – at least it’s not just Google struggling with new technology. Pitty the poor lobbyists in Brussels, cranking out vellum press releases on the original Gutenberg printing press – forced to communicate with MEPs by nailing theses to the doors of the Paul-Henri Spaak building in Brussels. [Chief Editor: Stop exaggerating] Ok, so maybe things aren’t quite that bad, but The Lobby has an interesting post criticising Brussels-based public affairs professionals for not capitalising on the opportunities afforded by new social media technologies.

Whilst we’re on the subject of social media: please check out Irish blogger Stephen Spillane’s proposal for some sort of joint European blog-action to mark Europe Day next month. At the moment, it looks like this “Europe Day” has mutated into “Europe Week” – because there are actually two official Europe days (May 5th for the Council of Europe and May 9th for the EU), and Ireland is helpfully holding it’s Europe Day on May 7th because they’re angry with the rest of Europe for being made to vote twice on the European constitution Lisbon treaty. Still – that does mean you get longer to write your blog post for “My Europe” Week.

The idea is that bloggers from across Europe will each write a post titled “My Europe” – in which they’ll talk about about their idea of what a future Europe should look like. Look for an official Bloggingportal announcement on this soon – but do head over to Stephen’s blog to pitch your ideas in the meantime!

More news on the digital democracy front: Julien Frisch is back from the trenches of Berlin. He was part of an elite group of Bloggingportal editors parachuted into the Re: Publica 2010 conference to deliver a workshop about using social media to meet the requirements of the EU’s little flirtation with direct democracy – AKA the “European Citizen’s Initiative.” Our crack team’s expert opinion? It can’t be done. The EU is scared of public participation in European democracy and has set the bar way too high – especially considering that anything coming out of the Citizen’s Initiative will be completely non-binding.

So, Bloggingportal is busy experimenting with digital democracy in other ways. We’re currently running a social media campaign to get a question about European politics asked to the leaders of UK political parties ahead of the upcoming general election. Our question is hosted as a video on YouTube, and if it gets enough votes Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have agreed to post a video response online. Here are 10 simple reasons to vote for our question.

Iceland's geology imitated its economy last week by exploding - Image CC / Flickr

Danish Journalist Rikke Brondum also has a question – when is Iceland going to fix its leak? The Icelandic volcano that erupted this week and grounded Europe’s aviation industry – in an event dubbed “Ashmageddon” by me (or, if you are Google Translate, Askesky) – has been making headlines around the world. Whilst EU leaders are stuck playing with their iPads, the aviation industry has sniffed an opportunity to make some money and is now approaching the EU cap in hand asking for financial support. What can I say? That’s just how we roll here in the United States of Europe, mo’ foes. when entire economic sectors aren’t competitive anymore we can always prop them back up with taxpayers’ money. Fo’ shizzle [Chief Editor: Joe, you started this piece pretending to be a pirate and now you're pretending to be a rapper? Seriously? You're fired]. In other news, people from across Europe are posting on Facebook and Twitter about beautiful, clear-blue, plane-free skies.

Finally, Bloggingportal isn’t the only service delivering round-ups of digital news in Europe. Whilst BP’s focus is on what the unwashed legions of European geeks political bloggers are writing about, the Personal Democracy Forum Blog has been putting together summaries of the latest European web 2.0 news. This week, they gave Bloggingportal a little plug. So we thought we’d plug them right back.

That’s all folks! See you next week!

The Week in Bloggingportal was written by Joe Litobarski this week.