INVITATION TO A DEBATE

The European Citizen Initiative: a new tool
for citizen participation in Europe?

Saturday 12^th May 2012
16:45 – 18:45
Auberge des 2 rives

With:

• Michaël Malherbe, Expert in European communications, editor of the blog www.lacomeuropeenne.fr
• Arthur Colin, Head of studies, from the European NGO Sauvons l’Europe
• Alexandre Heully, co-founder and Executive director of cafebabel.com

The debate will be in English.

This debate is organised by cafebaebl.com in the framework of “Shake up Europe!”. "Shake up Europe!" is a 4 days training session of cafebabel.com gathering 45 young leaders from 19 European NGO's active in the field of media.

This seminar is organised with the support of the Youth in Action program, the French Foreign ministry, the Foundation Charles Leopold Mayer and the Fondation Hippocrène.

How to get to the debate:                         

Auberge les deux rives
Rue des Cavaliers
67000 - Strasbourg
+33(0)3 88 45 54 20
+33(0)3 88 45 54 21    

Registration: please send an email to babelstrasbourg@gmail.com

Contacts:

Ovidiu Tataru, project manager, +33 6 58 07 50 46

The series Debate on Europe ('Reden über Europa') continues in 2012. The next panel discussion questions the EU’s cultural self-conception and the core values of it’s future foreign policy, In cooperation with More Europe, an initiative of European cultural institutes and foundations.

'The European Union made human rights one of the central aspects in its relations to other countries and region,' one could recently read on the European Commission’s homepage. Such statements have often remained unfulfilled promises, whenever political and economic interests were involved. Europe, wanting to see itself as the cradle of human and civil rights, has frequently failed to support democracy movements elsewhere. Human rights organisations have been criticising the ineffectiveness of sanctions against dictatorships and an arbitrary asylum policy for political refugees from member states for a long time. What core values will the emerging European External Action Service feel obliged to in the future? What will the role of cultural cooperation with third countries be in the future? Four days before the Avicenna Award ceremony for Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi in Frankfurt, she poses the following question in Berlin: 'Does the EU possess a serious human rights policy strategy?'

WHEN

2 May, 6 pm

WHERE

Allianz Forum Berlin, Pariser Platz 6.

WHO

Welcome: Henning Schulte-Noelle, chairman of the board of Allianz SE Johannes Ebert, Secretary General of the Goethe Institute

Keynote: Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate 2003, Avicenna Prize laureate 2012

Pictured: Shirin Ebadi 2003 (Image: (cc) anaelisafoto/ flickr)

Panelists: Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, member of the European Parliament and member in the Committee for Foreign Affairs of the EP

Gottfried Langenstein, President of the French-German cultural broadcasting corporation ARTE und managing director of 3sat

Robert Menasse, Austrian writer and EU expert

Pierre Vimont, Secretary General of the European External Action Service

Moderation: Malte Lehming, Der Tagesspiegel

An event by the Allianz Kulturstiftung and the More Europe initiative in cooperation with ARTE, Der Tagesspiegel, and rbb Kulturradio. Please sign up in advance under: allianzforum12@event-consultberlin.de or Tel.: +49-(0)30 / 321 80 82

On 18 April 2012 cafebabel.com's executive director Alexandre Heully, 32, and editorial coordinator Katharina Kloss, 31, were in Berlin with members of the official cafebabel.com Berlin blog, Christiane Loetsch and Tobias Sauer, to accept the 2012 Civis media online media award.

L-R: Kloss, Sauer, Loetsch and Heully

This is the third such event of its kind. The award was presented at the 'office' of German chancellor Angela Merkel.

L-R: Michael Radix, head of 'CIVIS Media foundation', Monika Piel, director of West German broadcasting, Alexandre Heully, Katharina Kloss and Germany's integration minister Maria Böhmer

'The internet is the means of providing the most development opportunities,' says Piel.

'It's a chance for more younger people to get involved,' says Heully - after all, cafebabel.com is a multilingual participatory media existing wholly on the contribution of volunteers across Europe and beyond, with its editorial headquarters in Paris. Since its creation in 2001 it's welcomed over 1, 500 writers, translators, bloggers, photographers, videomakers and clocal teams. 'The magazine gets around 400, 000 clicks a month,' explained Kloss.

The jury called cafebabel.com 'unusual, interesting, fresh'. We'll take that as a compliment! 'cafebabel.com reports unusual and interesting stories which are well researched and boldly presented'.

From 84 entries, cafebabel.com pipped its colleagues qantara.de and augenaufbremen.de to the post.

The thanks goes to all of you who propose articles, translations, article ideas, blog posts, photos, videos and local events every day from all over Europe. Without you, this magazine wouldn't be here!

Germany's intergration minister Maria Böhmer emphasised how important it is that medias take on themes such as integration and cultural diversity. For example, one in fifth citizens in Germany have another migration background, but only every fiftieth journalist comes from another background.

*This post is in part translated from the official Civis media article announcing the win by Marion Menne

Hello everyone from all of us here at cafebabel.com!

We're warming up to the spring and also to our challenging sequel of our first mission to the Balkans in 2010/2011, namely 'Orient Express Reporter'.

To recap, in 2012 we head back to half of last year's Balkan destinations; Tirana, Skopje, Podgorica and Prishtina, we hope to see you another year!

The chosen Balkan cities, with prospective dates of writing from them, are:

Belgrade (9 - 13 May 2012)

Zagreb (end of May/ early June 2012)

Istanbul (end of June/ mid-July 2012)

Sarajevo (mid to late July 2012)

The angle for the 2012 Orient Express reporter is that only EU-based journalists will report from Balkan cities, and only Balkan-based journalists will report from EU cities, which make up the other four destinations this year:

Budapest (19 -23 April 2012)

Rome (September 2012)

Berlin (October 2012)

Brussels (autumn 2012). The local team in the Belgian capital will hold a debate on Orient Express 24 April, details of which you can find here

Unfortunately, all calls for journalists and photographers are now closed, as we have received many applications to all eight cities. If you have any queries or want us to remember your name for a hopeful next edition of Orient Express Reporter, just drop us a line to editors@cafebabel.com. If you live in one of these eight cities, write to us and say hi too!