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EU diplomats wear trainers too
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February 7th, 2011EuropeThe spokespeople of the Hungarian presidency have reached out to the Blogging Portal editors to start a discussion on how to use online media to talk about the Council’s work. It has to be said that they got in touch with us long before the controversy around the Hungarian media law started, and that these people are not entitled to speak about it as of course, it’s a national matter and their mandate is to talk about EU matters.
After long debates within the Blogging Portal editor team, we decided to go and see what they wanted to talk about with us.
A small delegation of us went and met them a week ago. We had a great meeting, truly fun and inspiring. After 2 hours of open-hearted conversation, Gergely Polner, our host, stood up and I realised he was wearing trainers, something that was quite in contradiction with the classic suit and tie outfit he was wearing. Yes diplomats wear trainers too… because they are people too, just like the rest of us. Something most commentators of public life often forget.
Gergely Polner and Marton Hajdu have decided to open up a blog to share their experience as spokespeople of the EU presidency. It’s called Kovács & Kováts as a reference to the Tintin characters of Thomson and Thompson, Dupond and Dupont in French. The challenge: telling their own experience of the Council using the voice of people and not only that of institution representatives. Their initiative is truly innovative. Older generations of diplomats might consider it a “faux pas”, as Kovács & Kováts put it on their blog. Indeed, diplomats just as any other civil servants are not supposed to express their personal views on things. So how can they open a blog where articles are by definition personal? It is quite a challenge, indeed. But, actually in today’s world there’s not really another way. So long live their blog and let it show the way to future Council presidency spokespeople.
Tags: .eu, Council, EU institutions, Euroblogs, Hungarian presidency, Hungary
4 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Falk Lueke, House Of Twits and Ralf Grahn, Europasionaria. Europasionaria said: EU diplomats wear trainers too http://europasionaria.eu/?p=2677 [...]
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Polscieu » Blog Archive » Cybercrime in Europe and the European Union: A personal affair? February 8th, 2011 at 11:12
[...] Hungarian Council Presidency has invited us eurobloggers to a second meeting in their premises (see Europasionaria’s and my post on the 1st meeting) tonight and has proposed that we could talk with their expert on [...]
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Mathew Lowry’s Tagsmanian Devil » Blog Archive » Blogtour: The Hungarian Presidency opens up the Council March 12th, 2011 at 15:38
[...] got around to blogging that first meeting, due both to work commitments and the fact that Ron and Europasionaria covered it so well. I still intend to, because a few good ideas came of it, notably the idea of [...]
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Europasionaria » That’s one small step for the Council, one giant leap for the blogosphere March 15th, 2011 at 16:42
[...] This happened thanks to the spokespeople of the Hungarian presidency aka Kovács & Kováts, whom we’ve met a few times since the beginning of the year to discuss the activities they could do online. Trust was built throughout these initial meetings. [...]
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