european parliament
The Buzek Phenomenon
As I watched the presidential election today, I couldn't help but feel a little sad. I knew this was coming, but it is hard to realise that Jerzy Buzek won't be the President of the European Parliament anymore. You may think this is silly, but even though I don't know Jerzy Buzek personally I grew [...]
“Sliding doors”
After so many years working in the EP (nearly 6), an outsider photographer could think that you get tired or short of ideas because you have been taking photos of everything.. but he/she shall be wrong! One of the reasons why I love my job is because in the EP house, as everywhere, you can [...]
Integration best way to make online gambling safer
The European market for online gambling has increased enormously over the past decade and today 10 % of all gambling takes place over the internet, via mobile phones or interactive platforms. There are almost 15.000 gambling websites in Europe and the annual market volume is in excess of 10 billion euro. I have never [...]
Who’s afraid of social media?
Ancuta has been with us here in WebCom for a month on a study visit. She says she’s learning from us, but we all know that, not long from now, we will be learning from her… Sadly, today is her last day before returning to serious study in Denmark. It’s been great for all of us to have her around, and she leaves us, appropriately, with a blog post on social media.
Letting creativity in
To witness real creativity is surely also to stop and wonder about oneself and one’s own world, about the place of artistic creation in a life spent in offices, working for institutions, which, however important and genuinely ideal-founded, live a daily routine of office politics, meetings, hierarchies, procedures and rules.
Oh no, it’s the budget again!
Some things are tough to communicate. The annual EU budget is the classic example. So how do you do it?
Politics as a game
How is it to work in the European Parliament? I can experience it every day as a civil servant, but I’m pretty sure I will never do it as an MEP… Nevertheless, it’s now possible online! I found an online game organized by the Schuman foundation which proposes not only to be spectator of what happens in the hemicycle but to be a real actor defending his/her own opinions.
Communicating poverty
How can one communicate what poverty is like? That may sound like a trite question for those who experience it first hand. Perhaps we could emulate George Orwell and take to the kitchens, streets and mines in Paris and London and Wigan and experience grinding poverty first hand. I imagine it would be quite a [...]
Time for selFB-confidence
The FB page of the European Parliament rocks, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say it. As Florent wrote on his post, we’ve the broadest EU community and the biggest Parliament’s presence on Facebook in the world. I’m honoured to work at this project, and I want to invest myself to make it bigger, nicer, [...]
Print this out: Tricks to survive “Stressbourg”
It is actually very simple to get to our office PFL F 00445A once you know it. :} I am writing this for you so you will not get lost in Stressbourg {as my friend Alberto call it} and all you need to do is to follow a few basic rules. Why? I got super-stressed when [...]
A “big f*#king deal” in Brussels
It’s not often that the really big beasts of US politics pitch up in the European Parliament, but when they do, it’s a big deal. One US President has addressed the Parliament. That was Ronald Reagan in 1985. A far more recent visitor was the current Secretary of State, former First Lady and once heir apparent to the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, who came to Parliament for a “town-hall” meeting with young Europeans. So there was the usual excitement this week when US Vice-President Joe Biden came to the European Parliament.
How many MEPs use social media? A tentative update
Some rough ‘n’ ready figures on how many MEPs are using social media. Thanks to our doughty trainees for an arduous online trawl to produce these. Main finding: a qualified majority of MEPs are Facebook users!
Social media forum debrief
“Less stories more creatively told” was one of the phrases ringing in my ears as I departed the recent “Social Media World Forum” in London. These words were uttered by Adam Parker of RealWire who was speaking about the relative merits of press releases and whether they work or not in the social media age. [...]
Life and art, Europe and the West Wing
One thing this blog can do is let you into those little secrets of the daily life of the European Parliament. So here’s one for you: the place is positively heaving with ardent fans of the US television series the West Wing. Well at least that was my observation a few years ago when I [...]
A yes, a no, a maybe…
There was a palpable air of stakes being upped in Strasbourg this week, with parliamentarians flexing their muscles and, like rookie supermen early in the film, taking themselves by surprise with their own new powers. Last time I can remember that feeling was another seminal moment: the fall of the Santer Commission in 1999.
So this is what its like after all
So this is what it’s like? After more than a decade and a half as a journalist, I am now a source. One of the… yes, one of the “faceless bureaucrats”.
Haiku news from the European Parliament
This week, a group of journalists endeavoured to make a “news” experiment. They isolated themselves from the world’s traditional media (no radio, no television, no newspapers) and “produced” news having as unique sources of information “haiku” texts on Facebook and Twitter. To complicate things, they were not allowed to click on the links proposed in [...]
Twittering the hearings
Just a short post to draw attention to one of the more interesting aspects of the hearings of commissioners-designate, one which may mark an important change in the way EP political groups communicate. I was fascinated to observe during the seven days of hearings we have already had, and presumably in the one more we [...]
Statistics – a quick look on the backstage
Let’s have a (critical) view on our production on this blog… Is it enough? Is it equally distributed? Here are some statistics to help you make your own opinion.
Video six-pack.
It’s a tradition. Now and then we make a video, especially just before Christmas. Sure enough, at the end of last year, we made Writing for (y)EU. Basically, it’s a commercial. It’s about the stuff we do. You may know it; it’s on our Vimeo page and was embedded in a previous post on this [...]
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