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Meet the new EU council presidency

Posted by brusselsblogger on 09/01/09
Tags: EU council presidency

The European Commission will have its first meeting with the Czech presidency tomorrow, but you can already meet Prime Minister Topolánek today – online!
The Czech EU Presidency website is the first presidency portal to introduce the European chat.
Today, at 15:30 you can chat with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek.
I think this is a good thing – and should be more promoted, also on other official EU websites.
Here is the link to post your questions, which you can do already now:
Chat with EU presidency – Prime Minister Topolánek
PS: Maybe they will also host a chat with Václav Klaus

English
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Kosmopolit

Comment by Kosmopolit | 2009/01/09 at 11:38:31

Very interesting initiative! Hope this spills over to some other institutions… But the promotion has been pretty lousy, I was totally unaware of this, so thanks for blogging about it .
Julien

Comment by Julien | 2009/01/09 at 11:39:30

Thanks for the hint (which I got through http://www.kosmopolito.org/)!
Kosmopolit

Comment by Kosmopolit | 2009/01/09 at 11:39:58

Very disappointing. Do they know the meaning of the word “chat”?
brusselsblogger

Comment by brusselsblogger | 2009/01/09 at 11:40:28

Yes, it’s more a Q&A than a chat.
But having just tried to follow another (real) chat with a middle-east expert on German tagesschau.de I have to say that the way the Czechs do it is maybe not that bad. At least you have enough time reading through the answers.
The number of questions is really low though (but don’t know how many didn’t pass the moderation barrier – which BTW also existed on tagesschau.de chat
Kosmopolit

Comment by Kosmopolit | 2009/01/09 at 11:40:50

Yes it is very difficult to do a expert chat. But like that I can also check the page tomorrow again to read the answers. Moreover, how do you know whether that is the PM or a press officer?
Julien

Comment by Julien | 2009/01/09 at 11:41:10

I think they used the Wikipedia definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_chat) that says that any kind of online communication can be called “online chat”, while “chat” only means informal conversation.
brusselsblogger

Comment by brusselsblogger | 2009/01/09 at 11:41:31

As kosmopolit says: 4 answers are not a lot. Though in total there are 10 when one includes the 6 answers in Czech (which I can’t read) – someone up for translations of the top 2 ones?
European public sphere in full action – divided along the language border
Overal, I’d say a good start, but room for improvement.
Julien

Comment by Julien | 2009/01/09 at 11:41:51

I think the google-translation is good enough to get an idea:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vlada.cz%2Fscripts%2Fmodules%2Fadvice%2Fquestionlist.php%3Fid%3D10&sl=cs&tl=en&history_state0=
brusselsblogger

Comment by brusselsblogger | 2009/01/09 at 23:19:14

The Czech Presidency has done the job: they translated everything into English and published it yesterday: http://www.eu2009.cz/en/news-and-documents/news/prime-minister-mirek-topolanek-responded–online–in-a-european-chat—5033/
brusselsblogger

Comment by brusselsblogger | 2009/01/11 at 12:41:49

By the way: the chat with Czech Minister for European Affairs from 9 January has been postponed according to a spokesperson.

I assume this has nothing to do with the chats themselves bat rather with the gas crisis.
brusselsblogger

Comment by brusselsblogger | 2009/01/19 at 14:06:48

Another Czech Presidency chat has been cancelled today: http://www.vlada.cz/scripts/modules/advice/questionlist.php?id=15&vlozeno=1&locale=en

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Meet the new EU council presidency

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