100 posts
US$300 in tax for a blog?
Let us hope that so many of the new ‘ideas’ in the United States do not manage to make their way to the United Kingdom and then on to Europe. Like this idea from Philadelphia. Really? A $300 ‘business licence’ and taxes to r...
Eurobleugh
image from www.nicetomeeteu.com What’s wrong with you, you may well ask? I’ve had a summer broadly off Euroblogging, in the main part because so little happens in Brussels in August. I’ve also for work purposes avoided blogging on a...
Erkan’s Field Diary: Top posts of the week and the month
found here:http://paperbullet.com/ VIA Top Posts for 7 days ending 2010-08-29 1- A video: Turkish Porn Star Şahin K’s comedy film trailer 2- Welcome to Beşiktaş, Guti! – 15 thousand attends the ceremony in İnönü 3- Elif: Aşk-ı Memnu: Forb...
The Week in Bloggingportal: Europe’s New Hate Politics
MONDAY WAS the official European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. It was designated as such in 2009 by the European Parliament, with the specific date of August 23 being chosen to commemorate the day the Molotov-Ribbentr...
Desmond O'Toole writes guest article on jasonomahoney.ie
A short while back I was invited by Jason O'Mahoney, a commentator on Irish and European politics, to contribute a guest article to his blog jasonomahoney.ie. The article, "Why should European democracy matter?" puts the Campaign for a PES Primary in...
Bob on “decency”
Here at Shiraz we’re always keen to put our readers in touch with good blogging and serious discussion from elsewhere. Our mate Bob (Yer Man from Brockley) has initiated a discussion about the phenomenon of leftist “decency”, and w...
Back on the air…
Thanks to those marvellous chaps (there may be chapesses, but I haven’t encountered any) at PC World’s “Tech Guys” service, I’m back on the air! They told me that my flange attachment was out of line with the oval-sh...
Taking a break
So, having sat at this desk for much of the glorious summer, I am heading off for two weeks holiday, just as it turns to autumn…never mind… See you back here in two weeks for more fun and games!
Not dead – just tweeting
Horrifically busy in the real world, hence the longest break in blogging on this site in more than six years. I am, however, still commenting away about the EU (among other things) in 140 characters or less on Twitter on a daily basis – that...
Normal service will be resumed…
Readers will have noticed an absence of postings on Shiraz for several days. The reason is that my computer is on the blink (to use a technical term) and probably won’t be repaired until next week. Rosie and Max are less frequent contributors...
Mayor of Hounslow’s Blog
Having written a post recommending people to use blogs I was pleasantly surprised to find that Colin Ellar, my caseworker but most importantly Mayor of Hounslow has set up his own blog to publicise his mayoral work and to promote Hounslow. Colin i...
The Week in Bloggingportal: Number Crunching the EU
WHAT’S BEEN GOING on in the EU blogosphere this week, then? Well – we’re still in silly-season; the European parliament is on recess and our glorious leaders are all on holiday. So, we’re seeing posts of a slightly more…...
My MEP Prefers Folk of his own Blood
I KEEP going on about Daniel Hannan (I’ve written about him here and here) but I think the attention I’ve paid him is justified. The man is my MEP and represents me in the European parliament – I think I should … Continue rea...
Erkan’s Field Diary: Top posts of the week and the month
http://www.anacuba.com found in Ana Cuba Top Posts for 7 days ending 2010-08-22 1- A video: Turkish Porn Star Şahin K’s comedy film trailer 2- Welcome to Beşiktaş, Guti! – 15 thousand attends the ceremony in İnönü 3- Elif: Aşk-ı Memnu: Fo...
Comments Policy Proposal
Some of the commenters have complained that we do not adhere to our stated comments policy. The policy and the complaints can be read here. I would suggest that we enlarge on this policy, and before laying down some ground rules, would ask the contri...
Daniel Hannan’s quaint love of Europe
Languages other than English may be better suited, if you want to gain a deeper understanding of European integration, I argued yesterday. Daniel Hannan MEP, while professing a love for Europe, misses few opportunities to punish a good word about the...
After Eurogoblin: Why is English not the lingua franca of European integration?
The free movement of goods, persons, services and capital has been popular in England, at least when headed towards the European Continent, but the free flow of thoughts less so in the reverse direction, if threatening to enrich Britain. Have you ev...
Minor upgrades
It’s nearly a month since I started The Endless Track and I’ve refined the site a bit based on what works and what doesn’t. Obviously, the main change is the new WordPress theme, Papercrunch. It’s clean and simple, like the ol...
Quick Note on Comments
There's been a lot of spam being posted in the comments to the blog posts, so I'm going to start monitoring/approving comments so I don't have to go back through the archives finding and deleting spam.
No taxation without representation: bloggingportal.eu
blogging portal.eu, an aggregator for the European blogosphere, highlights the Campaign for a PES Primary as one of the two major stories of the week. The other story is the European Commissions plans for direct EU taxation. That's some exalted compa...
An "independent outsider" writes on the Campaign.
Ralf Grahn is a lawyer based in Helsinki who blogs on EU law and politics. Ralf has written two three thoughtful blog articles extolling the exciting prospect of the PES using primary elections to select our candidate for the Commission Presidency.Ra...
"An Encouraging Proposal" : Peter Sain ley Berry
Peter Sain ley Berry is a writer who maintains a blog with euobserver.com and is supporting the Campaign for a PES Primary. Peter writes, "... [the voters] should know – or so the argument goes – that if they vote for the Socialists or the democr...
Surprise arrest in unprecedented EU sabotage case
Three men and a woman were arrested following nearly two years of intense investigation by Europol with the assistance of the French intelligence services. The fact that Europol does anything comes as a surprise to many, but even more startling are t...
Bloggez-vous?
Bloggingportal.eu have picked up and will support the idea of a multilingual day of blogging on 26 September, to mark the European Day of Languages. I met with someone today who got very excited about the event and will try to get someone pretty seni...
Bloggingportal.eu and social media experiences in Grahnlaw post number 1,800
There is no magic in numbers, but it often feels comfortable to choose a certain date or an even number for a milestone. Say, the better life (learning Italian, keeping fit ... whatever) we start on 1 September – every year. Or, an even number of b...
The Week in Bloggingportal: No Representation Without Taxation
TAX AND POLITICS have been amongst the topics discussed by eurobloggers this week. A campaign has started up to encourage the Party of European Socialists (PES) to hold a primary before they nominate their candidate for Commission President. PES memb...
EU tax: Euroblog discussion on Bloggingportal.eu
One of the few silly season issues to make waves during summer recess in Brussels has been the preliminary announcement by the EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski that he will present a few options for an EU tax in September, as reported by Fin...
Oh, so Citzalia is all my fault
Aahmed ElAmin, one of the developers of Citzalia (whose words were followed hook, line and sinker by The Guardian) has penned his own side of the story at a website entitled The Royal Gazette. Odd location, and his approach to the whole thing is even...
Announcing good news from Erkan’s Field Diary
Dear Readers, maybe you realized maybe not, I have been inviting some of my friends and students who have a good background to write regularly for the blog. Soon a list of guest authors, their info and their personal pages will be seen at this page.
Kroes: “Social media means talking with Europeans”
We interviewed Neelie Kroes about her use of social media in July 2010, here is the result.
Conor Slowey on "The European Citizen"
Conor Slowey maintains a blog called "The European Citizen". He has written a very interesting post today on the Campaign for a PES Primary and in particular addresses the issue of whether the EU should develop as a parliamentary form of democracy or...
Jon Worth blogs on the Campaign for a PES Primary
Jon Worth is one of Europe's leading political bloggers and he is writing on the Campaign for a PES Primary. Jon opens with the question,What should the Party of European Socialists do in 2014 to avoid a repeat of 2009′s disastrous European Parliam...
Blogging among the Euro-Taliban: Talking about the EU (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
It is like campaigning in Helmand province or other parts of Afghanistan with a heavy Taliban presence. There is still a considerable groundswell of traditionalist support for fundamentalist media “madrassa teachers” and insurgent political “wa...
The Week in Bloggingportal: Playing Pretend Politics on your PC
THIS WEEK at Bloggingportal Towers, we’ve all been playing computer games. Citzalia is an online computer game commissioned by the European Parliament – a 3D world where citizens can make-pretend they’re involved in Brussels politic...
The blogging researcher
So, why do researchers blog? It is an intriguing research question and Sara Kjellberg (a researcher at Lund University) just published an interesting paper on the subject. Based on a set of interviews, she describes the main motivations for being a b...
Euroblog interaction: Communities (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
Sorry for this post from the "field" without links, but here are a few thoughts about some of the important players in the Euroblogosphere: the communities. The Taurillon family (discussed in detail in the previous post), Eurotribune, Cafe Babel and...
Euro roundup: Berlusconi, Citzalia, Euroblogging
Citzalia – the virtual ghost European Parliament (really, why spend money on this?) from Jon Worth by Jon Yesterday – thanks to this tweet – I had the dubious honour to be one of the first people to have a look at a draft website for Citz...
The Euro-bubble never sleeps (but eurobloggers do)
As I was writing in my last weekend news round-up, I have been kept away form the European news for the last days while attending to lectures and seminars in Tennessee. I will now try to catch up with what happen in my absence – on BloggingPort...
The Brussels blog: Taking a break
The Brussels blog is taking a break over the holiday season and will return in the European autumn. Thanks for your comments and for your readership.
Just love this visual attack on Dan Hannan
On EurogoblinAnd though I agree with Dan that the BNP being a national socilist party are indeed left wing in that sense I think the Goblin does have a point.Though he no doubts accepts Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and others as left wing...
Euroblog: The Taurillon family resurrected (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
About a week ago I wondered where Le Taurillon and its sibling publications had disappeared without any notice I had seen. The blog post did not draw any official response from the editors, who may think that actions speak louder than words. Without...
Euroblog: Franco-German EU girl geeks - vasistas? (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
Long before the world of online media or social media, in La Débâcle (The Downfall), the novelist Émile Zola described the ravages of war from the perspective of ordinary people, even if he hoped that a new France could be raised from the ashes.
Kathryn Thomas in leather?
I was reviewing some of the stats as to who visits the blog, etc, and came across some interesting stuff. Google leads people to me on the strangest of leads: 2 people found the blog after googling “Kathryn Thomas in leather”, 3 with R...
Great Euroblog on social media: Waltzing Matilda (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
“The views and ideas in this blog are entirely those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the European Commission”, make the blog Waltzing Matilda sound more like a promise than a threat, given the less than cuddly image o...
Towards referendum (3): AKP’s blogging contest: Best blog posts in favor of Constitutional changes
Check out the jury members. Related posts:Towards Referendum (2): PSYOPs in Dörtyol and İnegöl This week’s political agenda. Will there be referendum on Sept 12 or not Towards Referendum (1): a roundup Turkish politics roundup (1): Referendu...
How to miss a Euroblog endorsement in style: Writing for (y)EU (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs. Despite holid...
Blogging to set the political agenda – some thoughts from Eskilstuna
I spent a few hours today at a seminar about left wing blogging in Sweden in Eskilstuna, a medium sized town 90 minutes south west of Stockholm. I was invited there by Fredrik Pettersson, one of my web clients. My presentation from the seminar is her...
Bulgarian Blog Version Now Functional
The Bulgarian version of the European Union Law blog was suspended by WordPress for a little over 24h. Now the blog functions normally. I apologize for any inconvenience. I still haven’t understood what was the reason for its suspension.
The Week in Bloggingportal: Holiday!
THE TEAM at Bloggingportal Towers is on holiday this week. We will, however, be back with the best of the euroblogosphere next Sunday as usual. In the meantime, why not read this public service announcement from Ralf Grahn – a Bloggingportal ed...
Bulgarian Blog Version Suspended // Българската версия на блога е спряна
The Bulgarian version of European Union Law blog has been suspended by WordPress yesterday. I still do not know why this was done. I will get back to you when I receive any information from the WordPress support team. Българската … C...
WSJ blog: Real Time Brussels (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
Martin on Europaeum proposed the new Twitter tag for blog posts presenting Euroblogs worth reading: #bkaeb (for Better Know A EuroBlog). The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) recommending Euroblogs. Holiday season is reflected i...
Better Know A EuroBlog: August 2010 challenge
To much public acclaim, Martin on Europaeum proposed a new Twitter tag for blog posts presenting Euroblogs worth reading: #bkaeb (for “Better Know A EuroBlog”). The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) recommending Euroblogs. M...
Week of June 31st
(Version Francaise) Here is a summary of the news in Europe this week: On the economic level, Europe and the Eurozone is still in a weak situation, but stable that let an hope for a slow recovery [*]. The last indicators are stables; unemployment is
Semaine du 31 Juillet 2010
(English version) Voici le résumé de l’actualité Européenne de la semaine: Au niveau économique, l’Europe et la zone euro sont toujours dans une situation faible, mais cependant stable qui laisse espérer une reprise lente[*]. Les de...
Euroblogs: Where is Le Taurillon?
What has happened to Le Taurillon, the once active and alert online magazine for EU citizens in French, and the hub for articles in English, German and Italian sister publications? According to Bloggingportal.eu, the latest blog post on Le Taurillon...
Coming Week – summer break
The Coming Week feature (haha, definitely need that tongue-in-cheek icon…) is suspended for the summer, as the official calendar won’t be published again until la rentrée in September. I know how much you will all miss it…...
Blogging about Europe? Join Bloggingportal.eu!
At least to some extent Euroblogs offer the “Brussels Bubble” feedback on the outside world of half a billion people living in the European Union. At the same time blogs related to EU affairs inform and foster debate among citizens, including the...
Euroblogs: Bursting the Brussels Bubble?
Is the Euroblogosphere an insignificant appendix to the Brussels Bubble, or perhaps (potentially) something more? Let us offer ‘citoyen lambda (européen)’ (the average EU citizen) a complimentary tour. First, we can state that multilingual Blog...
Euroblogs facing Babel: Inclusive and exclusive approaches
If the European Union is the common theme, even our shared destiny, should discussions be confined to separate national or linguistic forums? A short while ago I decided to experiment with a multilingual comment policy on Grahnlaw. After a few day...
Où va-t-il chercher tout cela ?
La question quotidienne que se pose le bloggeur est de façon évidente : qu’est ce que je vais blogger ? La publication régulière et si possible fréquente de nouveaux billets est la raison d’être d’un blog. Comme l’écriv...
Open match
Open match Alors là mes petits agneaux, je m'interroge. En cette molle saison estivale, les compétitions de blogs se multiplient comme des petits pains. « The eurosphere has been particularly self-obsessed this week&nbs...
Show your support!
A poll is currently being conducted to vote for the UK’s top political blogs.If you want to have your say, all you need to do is to rank at least five of your favourite blogs and e-mail your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com.More details can be...
Why Blog Anyway?
Just a short post to Give Thanks for LobbyPlanet and LinoTheRhino for precisely puncturing our pompous reflections on the European public space: “I blog as a cheap means of therapy … Wordpress and my PC are my two sanity vents when used i...
Mathew Lowry and the European online public sphere
Martin on Europaeum launched the Twitter hash tag #bkaeb for Better Know A EuroBlog, for blog posts giving reasons for reading a specific Euroblog. Mathew Lowry’s Tagsmanian Devil has been mentioned frequently on Grahnlaw, because Mathew has spent...
Missing policy expert Eurobloggers: Motivation and rewards?
Sometimes we go over board when we try to explain things through clear contrasts. I did, when I described “business as usual” blogging on the European Union as petty, limited and low road, despite my intention to explore the need for subject spec...
Bloggingportal2: What, Why, How … and When?
As I and other BP editors have hinted at recently, over the past 6 or more months we’ve had a series of email discussions about how to develop BloggingPortal. In fact, one such discussion - based around an idea I launched via a Google documen...
Euroblog Round-up: A Crowd of Talkative Europeans
THE LATEST Euroblog Round-up is now up on Bloggingportal. Read it here.
The Week in Bloggingportal: A Crowd of Talkative Europeans
THIS HAS been, without doubt, one of the busiest weeks we’ve ever had here at Bloggingportal towers. There have been so many great conversations going on in the blogosphere that the Editor-in-Chief has been reduced to a gibbering wreck trying t...
E-blogs by Wikio: the best European blogposts now available in 5 languages
Thanks to the European blog search engine Wikio, there is now no need anymore to speak 5 languages to discover the best European blogs. Each day on e-blogs, blogposts from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are selected and translated into 5 la...
Euroblogging roundup (and more from Europe…)
Fundamental challenges for Euroblogging by Grahnlaw The Open Europe blog made the point that there is blogging on the fundamental questions of the future direction of Europe, as well as on EU politics in a narrower sense, the outcome of EU policies.
Opening Up My Euroblogging: Language and Linking
I've been inspired by Mathew Lowry and Ralf Grahn to open up my Euroblogging and to try and reach out a bit more across the blogosphere(s).The debate on the French Euroblogosphere (see Europasionaria) prompted Grahnlaw to introduce a policy on langua...
Scienceblogs: an inspirationally cautionary tale for EU social media? (updated)
[update: a tiny extra take-away added at the very end of the post, a few hours later] When I came to Brussels in 1991 it was as a science writer. It remained my profession for many years, so when scienceblogs.com was launched in 2006 I checked i...
Best of the Euroblogs?
Last week, public affairs firm Waggener Edstrom published the findings of their ‘Brussels Blogger Study’. Having assessed the relevance and reach of thirty EU policy-related blogs, the firm produced a top ten of those they considered to b...
A message from Johnny
As a relative newcomer to the European blogging community (Ooh, Brussels! has only been going for 10 weeks) I’ve been struck by how lively and thriving the EU blogging scene is. Debate is informed and constructive and also close-knit: there see...
