Welcome from your group maintainer - and some rules
Welcome group - I'd like to introduce both myself as a new maintainer and some rules for the civility of this group. While for the moment irascignavojo will do, my name is no real secret, for all those who want to have offline contact - in fact I have been blogging about Europe for years now and I'm trying to get known better by more people out there as I'm campaigning for a place (on the list of my party for the June 2009 election and thus) in the European Parliament.
I'm a europhile with a healthy dose of scepticism when it comes to pure marketing bubbles, as I'm a consultant in brand marketing strategies in my daily life and know how marketing language is worded.
As a Green party member I am all for free speech. The language in this group however, especially in the comment sections, has deteriorated rapidly over the last days and as a maintainer of this group that is far from what I will allow to become a habit. What does that mean? It means, criticism should go on the topic, not 'ad personam'. As a member of the EU-workinggroup of attac I am aware of and involved in a fair amount of criticism of the EU and I know for a fact that such criticism is possible without resorting to pointless accusations. Accordingly I expect you all to be able to write in a way that is less inflammatory than the last days have seen.
Reading Daniel Hannans blog regularly (and enjoying the blog posts more than the comments they attract) I am aware that some of my fellow british citizens are used to heap dung on any EU initiative and on the town of Brussels as a synonym for "EUrocrats". Personally I prefer Strasbourg, which is seat to the Council of Europe and the home of the European Parliament (see picture, made at noon today), because it stands for a plus in human rights and an ever so slowly growing plus in democracy. But anyway I ask you to steer away from that kind of pointless blame-game (when a dove drops something on your head, it's really not the fault of 'Brussels'), and those englishmen who do not want to write what Mark Mardell writes are asked to take on other role models with a view closer to their own but civil in tone. How about the Bruges Group for example?
I hope that we can all have friendly discussions while disagreeing over their content. I'll watch this for a few days and then see if this gentle warning was read and acted upon.