Let’s talk about you

When Presseuropwas launched, one objective was to create a space for debate about Europe. To do this we sought to publish articles that would spark or feed this debate, and we invited our readers to join the discussion.

And to judge from the growing number of comments we are getting, especially since we developed tools to help you talk to us more directly, you have done that willingly, dear readers. These tools are constantly evolving, and we are seeking to adapt them to the needs of a discussion that must be as open and fluent as possible. The survey currently online should allow us to orient ourselves better.

After nearly three years, the result is the emergence of a true community, a modest one indeed in view of the vast potential readership that Presseurop is reaching out to, but one that shares the same liking for debate, for the exchange of views, and one that has the same interest in Europe.

A community, a “salon” in the words of Maja Hagerman writing in Dagens Nyheter, of readers who go beyond the borders of Europe, who are not afraid to speak in a language other than their own, who are curious about others and their ideas and who share a great mutual respect. In this way they have given this debate a quality rarely seen in the media - “among the most civilised and reasonable that I have ever read on the Internet," wrote Federico F.

It’s a community that demonstrates a genuine need among Europeans to discuss subjects that concern all of us. European institutions seem at least as distant from citizens as national governments, and even the European Parliament, although elected by universal suffrage, appears more focused on its own institutional counterparts than on its voters.

The European Union has the main elements of a state – an executive (two even, with the Council and the Commission), a legislative chamber and judiciary – but it lacks a public opinion, as NunoD among others has pointed out.

Besides being desirable in itself, a European public opinion would be the best defence against these democratic shortcomings of the Brussels institutions – real or imagined – that you are often quick to denounce. This European public space that we so lack – it's you, dear readers, who are contributing to creating it every day.