Welcome to the website of Speaking of Europe! The website where we believe that speaking of Europe, or more technically correct; speaking about Europe (forgive us the creative liberty), is a vitally important thing to do. Too many conversations about new European laws or the European elections have ended in two people agreeing to just stop talking about it because they don’t know enough about it anyway. Which isn’t bad, don’t get us wrong. It’s a pretty rare thing these days for someone to admit they don’t know what they’re talking about. It is quite a shame though. To not have people speak about one of the most important and influential political institutions of our time, the European Union, just because they don’t know their facts.
Well, fear not! We’re going to give you those facts. We’re going to hand them to you on a silver platter so to speak. And we know reading about politics can be boring, yes. And it can be very technical, of course. And nobody can possibly be expected to remember all those names, true. But we’re going to try our best to bring them to you in a way that is fun, and makes sense, and is easy to read.
Even though we lack gravitas, as the ancient Romans would say, we’ve established that the way the news handles the EU isn’t quite cutting it. On the one hand, European citizens are dealing with news agencies and broadcast stations that bring European news in simple headlines. As if the process of getting three major institutions and twenty-seven The 27 countries that are part of the EU. See the list of all members here. member states to agree on something can be summarized by a few words in font size 30. On the other hand, we’re dealing with new websites that do tremendous jobs, again don’t get us wrong, but are very technical and detailed making them only readable and enjoyable for the professionals and hardcore Europhiles.
We’re going to do it differently. Of course, can’t avoid some of those same things we like to complain about. At some point, we’re going to have to summarize an incredibly complicated story in a few words. (font size still up for debate). And of course, sometimes we just need to get a bit too technical. But we’re going to do our best to bring our stories in a way that’s understandable and in such a way that you, hopefully, might enjoy reading them.
We’ve got a couple ideas on how we’re going to do this. But mostly it will be a case of trial and error. And we’re going to need your help with this. To involve you in our thinking process we’re going to publish editorials, like this one, regularly. In the meantime, we need you guys to give us feedback. Send us emails, message us on Facebook, mention us in tweets, whichever way suits you best. Let us know what topics we are missing and what you’d like to hear more about.
We would like to say we are going to publish articles on the daily, but let’s be honest that just isn’t possible. Yet! Instead, we’re going to focus on getting you a nice new story once every week. At least, in the beginning. Every week we manage to produce an article or two more, you may consider this a free bonus. Brought to you by our not so busy time schedule or approaching burnout. Also, if you consider yourself quite the podcast connoisseur, we might have something special for you too. Our show, where we talk about anything European, is going to hit the web regularly and if you don’t mind us saying so, it’s quite good for a bunch of amateurs with audio equipment.
In conclusion, dear readers, who by now we would like to call friends (maybe?), this is what we’re going to do. We sincerely hope we’ve roused your enthusiasm, and that you’ll be with us again next time our name pops up on your socials. Don’t forget to like us before you leave. Bookmark this website, give us a thumbs up on Facebook, follow us on twitter. Do whatever feels right for you. And have a great day!
Kind regards,
Speaking of Europe