nrc.nl - International - Features - Getting Europeans to talk to each other

If one newspaper is read in all European countries it is probably the International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times. In second and third place are the Financial Times and The Economist, both newspapers from a country that is only half heartedly a part of Europe.

Europe now has its own currency, central bank, parliament and court of justice. As soon as the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect it will have a genuine president and a foreign minister. Yet, when it comes to getting information about Europe there is not a single transnational medium that Europeans can turn to.

European vacuum

There is no European newspaper that is read by Italians and Czechs alike, no single website where both Spaniards and Swedes go to get their news, no TV news programme that is broadcast to every living room in Europe at 8 p.m. A few German-language media, like Die Zeit or the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, do have some influence beyond their national borders. But there is no Europe-wide debate, not even in the run-up to the European elections in June.