L I V I N G E U R O P E
An Introduction
In today’s world we all depend on one another. We travel. We do business. Our economies are strongly linked to each other. And political decisions in one country have importance for neighbouring countries.
All this is in particular true when the 27 member states of the European Union are concerned.
But do we know much about each other ? Yes, we follow major events in other countries of TV and other media. Elections, disasters, celebrations, state visits. But not much more.
This is bad. Why ? For several reasons. By knowing more we will understand more. By following the daily events and daily discussions in other countries we can most probably also learn something. Nobody is perfect. Nobody has the ideal solution to problems, which are often the same. Why not learn from others instead of trying to invent the wheel once again – all the time ?! And by knowing more we are likely to be inspired and stimulated to do things in a different way or do new things.
The countries and the economies have opened up. Let us now also open up our minds. Our knowledge about our neighbours. Our genuine interest in how other people lives and what their concerns and solutions are.
The Internet and other digital tools offer a simple and efficient solution to such a new opening.
LIVING EUROPE gives you direct and easy access to interesting web sources in each EU country. It is a first concrete and operational step to create a “European Public Space”.
You click on a country of your choice on the European Map. And you get to the Knowledge & Debate Site from that country. It’s as simple as that.
What about the different languages ? We will aim at as many websites in English as possible. And for the others we will step by step build in an easy translation link to Google Translate ( which offers an understandable, though never correct, machine translation within seconds.
And what about updating of the pages ? As it is not foreseen to engage a lot of human resources on a permanent basis in LIVING EUROPE we will give priority to web links, which are either stable factual sites or are daily updated by their owners
LIVING EUROPE is started at the initiative of the Club of Venice – an informal gathering of the communication directors of European governments. The technical back up is assured by the JRC ( Joint Research Centre of the EU ).
And LIVING EUROPE will after a test period be available free of charge on the web to everybody. It will hopefully be of particular interest to anybody, who for private or professional reasons wants to know much more about daily life and daily discussions in countries and regions all over Europe.
Niels Jørgen Thøgersen
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