Eric Karstens

Category: European Policy

  • More than meets the eye: The EU as a funding source for journalism

    The European Union is entangled with journalism in so many ways that it can be hard to see the forest for the trees. That’s because journalism only appears on the label of very few programmes, but can well be an ingredient or theme of many others.

  • Innovation and social purpose: Public and philanthropic support for European journalism

    The three general-purpose news outlets with the greatest agenda-setting power over European politics – the Financial Times, The Economist, and the BBC – will very soon be based outside the European Union. What could the EU and European philanthropies do to nurture a supranational journalism landscape that might replace them?

  • Communicating Europe: The State of Play

    Europe is making headlines. In the current decade, there has in fact been a surge in media attention for EU-related topics. What previously appeared next to impossible in most Member States, front-page stories involving the European Union in mainstream news outlets, has almost become a matter of course. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not unequivocally favourable.

  • An introduction to the European Union

    The constellation of Council, Commission, and Parliament, all with their different tasks and characteristics, has proven to be a powerful mechanism to reach consensus even on highly contentious topics, and imposes well-functioning checks and balances on the European Union. That this is hard and takes time goes with the territory.

  • How the EU can help journalism

    Why is the European Union so ineffective when it comes to supporting press freedom and media pluralism? And what could it do within the limits of its current competences to foster journalism? It all boils down to one word: CONNECT.

  • The EU, its neighbours, and journalism revolution

    The transition to a free and democratic media system in formerly authoritarian countries may be almost as difficult for the revolutionaries themselves as it typically is for the former mouthpieces of defunct regimes. Can the European Union help?

  • The art of EU procurement

    The EU has masterminded the very rules of public procurement, but it is also one of the largest tendering authorities itself. The scope of design of tenders is such that it may make or break entire companies and organisations, and affect the implementation of public policy beyond the specific objectives of any individual tender.

  • Will eurocrats redefine democracy?

    Our current notion of democracy has developed within and for the modern nation state. Robert Menasse, however, advocates Europe as a post-national utopia, requiring a fundamentally new and different understanding and practice of democracy that still needs to be developed. “The nation states”, he suggests, “must fade away if we want a system of checks…

  • A primer on EU funding for NGOs

    Non-profit organizations which realise that some of their capabilities have a market value and deploy them accordingly can defend their autonomous status while reducing dependency from external donors, many of whom have an agenda of their own.

  • Joy and jeopardy: Revisiting the Anthem of Europe

    The main issue with the European anthem lies in the fact that it takes a short tune completely out of context and – even worse – re-arranges it into a syrupy, self-contained, instrumental piece of music. The fact that renowned Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan was put in charge of cutting it to size does…