Archive
Year: 2008
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Untrammelled Power for Commission in Telecoms Regulation?
September 15, 2008
Nobody knows where the IRG begins and the ERG ends, Commissioner Reding complains to the European Parliament. You can see just how irritated the Commission is that the Independent (telecoms) Regulatory Group (IRG) with 31 European members should have been registered as a private company under Belgian law, to do things which (she believes) should be left to the 27-member European Regulators Group (ERG) set up by the Commission. IRG, she says, is (just like...
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Bridging the EU’s Communication Gap?
September 11, 2008
As we all know there are millions and millions of EU citizens out there that feel a deep and distressing sense of emptiness and detachment from the EU legislative machine. Such citizens are just gagging to learn about the enthralling political dealings that occur here in Brussels and (as soon as extra hard hats are provided) in Strasbourg. I am pleased to announce that their wish will soon come true! Yes, Europarl TV, a new...
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EU Relations Will Test Russian Intentions After Georgia Invasion
September 8, 2008
The OSCE seems to have serious doubts about Georgia’s role and there are even suggestions that the conflict was provoked by Vice President Cheney in order to boost McCain’s cause in the US elections. Rash initiatives by the Georgian government in South Ossetia were almost certainly the trigger for the Russian action, but a trigger which Moscow had long been anticipating. The campaign was surely a far-reaching and thoroughly planned operation to damage the regime...
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How visible is your brand on Youtube?
August 14, 2008
Have you ever wondered how visible particular brands are on online social networks? There are some people who have. Visiting http://howsociable.com you can type any of 2337 brands (status for August 14th) and measure the level of their visibility on social networking sites such as Youtube, Facebook, Technorati and many more, up to 22 metrics as it stands. After typing the brand, you will be given a special score, which describes the level of a brand’s social network popularity. There is...
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Bloggers for health tourism?
August 12, 2008
On 2 July 2008, the European Commission released its long awaited proposal for a directive on cross-border healthcare. The proposal, whose full title is "directive on the application of patient’s right in cross-border healthcare" is designed to clarify the right of EU citizens to obtain healthcare outside their Member State of residence and be reimbursed for that treatment. Clearly a proposal of great interest to the general public (we all use healthcare services don't we?...
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11.5% of MEPs are bloggers
August 8, 2008
Some of our regular readers may have remembered that in a recent post, we mentioned that we were undertaking a digital audit of MEPs. The poor FH souls whose job it was audit all 785 MEPs will go down in history for their services to digital (thanks Jez, Ed, and Karen!). Anyway we have looked at every MEP to see how they are doing on websites, blogs, facebook wikipedia and so forth. This post will look at...
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Harvard Political Review and Politics 2.0
August 6, 2008
Good to see the Harvard Political Review's online edition turning its attention to the impact of digital on politics. Interesting point raised in the article - does the use of digital in campaigning encourage undue focus on senstionalist and controversial issues (i.e. misspeaking Clintons, Obama's pastor etc) at the expense of discussion about substantive policy issues?...
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User-generated political parties
August 5, 2008
Nice development for digital politics in the "ooh-arrghh" west of England. A new political party, the Social Liberalists, was officially registered by the Electoral Commission end July. It's been created by 18 year old Ben Lewis and some of his school mates, as reported in the renowned Western Morning News of Plymouth. Interesting to see how instrumental digital has been in the formation of the party. According to the founder, the ideas for policies and manifestos only came about because...
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Public Affairs 2.0 – one year on
July 31, 2008
Health warning - this is a self-indulgent end of school term post. It's about time that some of us left the unseasonal sunshine of Brussels for southern climes. As we put the out of office on, set the voicemail up and send long to-do lists to those colleagues unlucky enough to remain here over the August lull/madness period, we thought it would be a good time to reflect on the first year of this blog...
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Doha Collapse: Bitter Disappointment for the Commission
July 31, 2008
Collapse of the Doha Round after seven years of negotiation must have been a major disappointment for the European Commission. As the Barroso team moves towards the twilight year of its five year term a positive result in Geneva would have somewhat alleviated the gloom following the Irish referendum, the suspension of the Lisbon Treaty process and the stormy economic environment facing Europe. For Commissioner Peter Mandelson it was a bitter personal blow, since negotiation...