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The Europe roundup: Creating a more transparent Frankfurt

Antonella Napolitano | March 10, 2010 - 4:49am | Email This!
  • Germany | Creating a more transparent Frankfurt
    Frankfurt-Gestalten.de (Create Frankfurt) is a new space for citizen participation: the aim is tracking local political decisions, making them more transparent and motivate citizens to connect locally and to discuss on how to change their neighborhood.
    The website offers information in form of geo-referenced data and documents properly tagged. It also offer an email service and space for comments and proposals.

    The creator Christian Kreutz says he's learning a lot from the first steps of the project: " What fascinates me about the Frankfurt-gestalten.de project is that it has a lot of potential and can develop in many directions: The data can be further explored or more data sources added to present local politics from different angles (e.g. interests) by using maps and other visualization methods, [you can] extend the initiative section and create a general channel for local neighborhood exchange of ideas with different local stakeholders for social change". We are waiting for developments and to see if, hopefully, some other cities will follow.

  • UK | Bloggers excluded from Twitter accreditation
    On the Guardian, Sarah Hartley reports that bloggers have been excluded from Twitter accreditation. Unusual as it may seem, in fact, the Tameside council (in the northern part of the country) decided to provide Twitter accreditation to professional journalists. But bloggers don't fall into the definition of press, according to a 1972 local government act: this raised lots of protests, even if - technically - the council acted lawfully (check comments, too).
    This is possibly a new chapter in the debate on the importance of the microblogging tool in this round of election. What seems to be sure is that rules to require accreditation are a new aspect to discuss. Will Twitter play a role at least in the accessibility debate?
  • EU | Visual laws
    Julien Frisch asks if there are people willing to translate the rules of procedure of the European Commission into visual laws: "I don't think many people outside the institutions will actually read this. It is boring. It is interlaced. As most EU law. But the rules of procedure (or the Lisbon Treaties), if you read and understand them, produce a visual image of personalities and interactions in your mind, simplified representations of the legal provisions translated into simple pictures or simplified real-life situations.". Would you like to help him?
  • EU |  Bloggingportal has a roundup, too
    Bloggingportal is the most important aggregator of Euroblogs, with more than 500 members covering EU affairs in several languages. This growing community also have a very important role in spreading knowledge about what is going on in EU institutions. Last Sunday they started a weekly roundup: "We’re aiming for greater transparency and openness, so this will be a chance for us to explain our choices and why we think they are worthy of your attention".
    Keep the conversation going!
  • UK | Looking for a campaign song
    It is not the most important thing in a campaign but “political campaigns spend endless hours choosing campaign songs, despite the fact that they garner no votes whatsoever” says Hopi Sen, Labour supporter and former press officer. Hopi's pick is Don’t Stop Believin’, by Journey (or Glee, if you prefer). What would be yours?

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