Training courses

Details of three more training courses are now on the website:
- Finding out about the EU
- What's in a Directive? Finding EU law on the web
- Tracking EU Documents - what’s in a number?
More information on our training page.

Focus

The November issue of Focus is now on the Members' Area of our website. December's issue is well underway and should be delivered for DTPing on Monday.

Sex, lies and … Eurostat?

European statistics hit the headlines this week with news that MEPs had blocked an attempt by the Commission to quiz women on their sex lives. Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) was discussing COM (2007) 69 - ‘Proposal for a Regulation ... on population and housing censuses’. The draft recommended - amongst many other things - that women be asked the dates on which their first and current “consensual union(s)” began. Lithuanian MEP Ona Juknevičienė in her report, said “The question is too intrusive and concerns only women, which is not legitimate.”
Source: MEPs hit back at 'intimate' Brussels census (EUobserver.com)
Proposal text
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs - documents for meeting 20.11.2007

Viewing site content?

The EIA website is created using Microsoft software and mostly viewed - by me - in Internet Explorer. It looks quite different in Firefox, with font appearing very small. There are, of course, many variables involved, but does anyone have any comments on the look of the EIA website pages? Are they okay? Or not?

Focus update

As promised, news of progress with Focus. The November issue has just gone to Karin Daniels, our DTP person in Maastricht. All being well, copies should be posted to EIA Members early in December.
I'm now starting work on the December issue, which should be posted and with people before Christmas. January’s issue should follow soon after. As always, ideas for articles are welcome.

Europe Direct

An interesting press release at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1741&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Apparently Europe Direct has already had its 100,000th enquiry this year

Information policy in France

The Strategic Analysis Centre in France has just published a detailed article on "Finding information about Europe in France" in the online journal Strategic Horizons, co-published with the Robert Schuman Foundation. As the Reform Treaty is due to be signed in December and France takes up the Presidency next year it is particularly timely.
The article is online at http://www.strategie.gouv.fr/revue/sommaire.php3 and can be read in English, French, German or Spanish.

Maybe the British Government could get a few ideas from it...

Reform Treaty explained

Thanks to Patrick Overy for alerting us to a chapter by chapter and sector by sector explanation of the Reform Treaty (the Treaty of Lisbon) offered in a special issue of Europolitics - go to www.europolitics.info click the large 'Europolitics' advert and then choose the 'Treaty of Lisbon' edition.

Conference booking form problem

Despite much checking when it was set up, the Conference booking form has developed a glitch. I'm trying to sort it out and it should be back to normal by Friday morning. Anyone who's had a problem booking should please try again.
Update - this seems to be a problem relating to our ISP moving domains last week; it will take longer to sort than I'd expected, but will still be done sometime Friday I hope.
Another update - the form is working now, but it's taken hours to sort out with the ISP!

Welcome!

This is the Association's blog - although we'd like it to be less of a blog and more of a dialogue. So less of us initiating stuff, and more of you sharing thoughts, comments, queries on the topics posted.
That said, it gives us a more informal way of communicating than our website does - so we will be taking the opportunity to let you know what's going on with our Conference, training courses etc. on a frequent, if not daily, basis.
Bookmark us now and let us know what you think ...

Conference

Have you seen our Conference programme? Are you planning to attend? Let us know ...

Focus

Apologies to members waiting for the Focus newsletter. The next issue - a double issue for September-October - has only just gone to print. My aim is to get the November issue out in the next couple of weeks, and December's early in that month. I'll keep you posted with our progress.

EU Communication policy

The Association is submitting a response to the Commission's latest Communication on communication - ‘Communicating Europe in Partnership’. If there's anything you'd like us to consider for inclusion - or if you have any views on this latest document - please let us know.

Q&A on EU information

Reply to this post to ask questions about EU information.