• EU | Eurobloggers and EU policy: how to build bridges
  A couple of weeks ago on Public affairs 2.0 blog, Steffen explained the possibile influence of new voices in the EU, defining eurobloggers and policy bloggers and the intersection of the two groups. After all the conversations that followed the launch event of the Brussels Blogger Study, Mathew Lowry reflects on whether the lack of specialists in EU-oriented blogs is impeding the development of the European online public space.

• EU | What happens when the Euroblogger becomes a reporter...
  

  When the Euroblogger enters unknown territory, she or he doesn't know whether he or she is walking into a gold mine or a mine field - and my participation at the EPP Summit ahead of the June European Council meeting was such a move into unknown territory.

  Euroblogger Julien Frisch was invited to follow the European People's party summit and liveblogged the event. Frisch had previously been active part in the debate on whether bloggers should get accreditation to EU institutions (a topic we explored on our blog, too) and has a lot of interesting reflections, an exploration on the differences between blogging and journalism and how both of them can look at the EU work and tell people about that:

• EU | Should we give eVoting another chance?
  Voting in an election is not as easy as it may seem: during the British election night many people reported they could not cast their ballots. As reported by The Guardian, "at least 1,200 people lost their chance to vote on election night because of bad planning by councils, according to an official report by the electoral watchdog the Electoral Commission which says the entire system of running elections needs to be modernised ". The postal system didn't cause less problems, as some local authorities report postal voting enquiries up by 60%.
  The next question is unavoidable: could eVoting be a solution?

Earlier today I published a story on Andrew Stott as the new director of digital engagement in the British government. Later I recognized it was a story from 2009. I deeply apologize to PDF readers for my mistake.

• UK | Introducing Andrew Stott, first Digital Engagement czar
  The U.K. government has hired Andrew Stott as "director of digital engagement" to push its plan to move more public services online and to pursue a better use of digital technologies to engage with citizens.
  Stott will be responsible for implementing the Power of Information Taskforce recommendations:

• Germany | From Minister Aigner to Mark Zuckerberg: the importance of privacy
  German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner has written an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, expressing her concerns about Facebook’s plans to further relax data protection regulations:

• UK | Twitter: a new prediction system for elections?
  During the UK electoral campaign Tweetminster conducted a Twitter-based word of mouth experiment : they tracked the most mentioned constituencies and candidates and tried to map the correlation between buzz, word-of-mouth and the eventual election results through a predictive mode (here you can read more about initial findngs and methodology).
  The results?

• UK | Action replay: an Internet election in UK?
  UK has a new Prime Minister, David Cameron. As the new Prime Minister is working on the new government, it's time to reflect on how the web influenced this election. Well, we'll discuss it tomorrow in London at Action Replay, a formal review of the Britain's first digital election.
  Meanwhile take a look to some interesting views on the topic.

• UK | Follow the UK election online (while waiting for official results)
  All over Europe today it's all about UK general election. Results show a victory of the Conservatives but without a majority - so, pointing to a hung Parliament. Oh, and the Greens get their first seat ever getting their leader Caroline Lucas (also on Twitter) elected in Brighton.
  
  (BBC' homepage at 10.15)

• Slovenia | An emerging e-participation scenario
  E-participation is emerging in recent years in Slovenia, as NGOs have started to take a more web-based approach: it’s one of the most interesting findings that emerged from the Seminar for Watchdogs held earlier this month in Warsaw.
  The Slovenian e-participation scenario was described by Simon Delakorda and Matej Delakorda: “Grass-roots activities like e-petitions, e-questionnaires, Facebook groups and blogs do not usually represent part of a formal or institutionalized policy-making process and are therefore providing much needed input from citizens in relation to government institutions, based on the principle of participatory democracy. This can, however, sometimes result in conflict with a government or a stalemate in the decision-making process".
  The two researchers highlight issue and challenges of a complicated context: a number of projects, in fact, is not seeing much participation for a number of reason that vary from a need of specific know-how to financial constraints (some of the projects are funded by government which sometimes tries to use them to shape public opinion).

• Germany | How do you say "transparency" in German?
  The answer is probably Abgeordnetenwatch (Deputy watch), a German website that allows citizens to ask questions to local and national politicians. In six years more than 150.000 questions were collected and - most surprisingly - about 100.000 answers. How has it been possible?  Check this interview (in French) to the founder Gregor Hackmack who explains how they were able to gather such a huge audience and convince politicians to participate. 
  Now Abgeordnetenwatch has a big influence on public opinion, helping citizens to get to know better their elected deputies and sharing informations on their activities in Parliament on both national and regional level.