FAQ [de] [fr]

General Intro

• What is the background of EurActiv, how was it started, and by whom?
• What is the founding concept behind EurActiv?
• You say that you help promote the concept of transparency in the European dialogue, how do you do this practically?

Content

• What topics/sections does Euractiv cover?
• What are the different types of content in each sections?
• Additional valuable content
• Mobile version

Financing

• Who provided the start-up capital?
• Are you looking for investors?
• What business model does EurActiv use?

The company

• So you are an Internet start-up?
• You receive funding from the European Commission and sponsoring from large corporate sponsors: does that influence your coverage of the European institutions?
• Who are your competitors?
• What is unique about EurActiv?

The Future

• Will EurActiv content remain mainly in English?
• Will EurActiv be taken over by media giants like Pearson or Bertelsmann?

CrossLingual™ Help

• In what languages can I access EurActiv.com?
• How can I choose the language I want?
• Is everythingtranslated in all three languages?

General Intro

• What is the background of EurActiv, how was it started, and by whom?

  EurActiv was set up in 1999 by Christophe Leclercq (publisher). It now involves circa 30 persons, plus subcontractors and partners' staff in Europe. Together with this extended team, ca 60 people contribute to the EurActiv brand.

• What is the founding concept behind EurActiv?

  EurActiv contributes to transparency and efficiency in EU Affairs. It extends the political debate to include private sector policy positions as well as official policy proposals.

• You say that you help promote the concept of transparency in the European dialogue, how do you do this practically?

  EurActiv's coverage of EU Affairs concentrates on policy positions by EU Actors trying to influence policies in the pre-legislative phase, before a Commission proposal. By providing links to the full text of these positions, EurActiv brings more visibility to the processes of influencing EU policies.

Back to question list 

Content

• What topics/sections does Euractiv cover?

  Policy Sections: providing in-depth analysis of key EU policies

  • EurActiv.com covers 19 policy sections:  Agenda 2004-09, Constitution, Governance, Corp. Responsibility, Enlargement, Environment, Sustainable Dev. Health & Pharma, Innovation, Justice & Security, Media/eCommerce, Telecoms Science & Research, Energy, Transport, Education, Security & Defense, Public Affairs, Sports
  • Policy developments in the following areas are monitored via mini-sections (although in a less in-depth manner)  EP Elections 2004, Bio-Tech, Food & Consumers , Trade, Taxation, Economy & Euro, CAP Reform, Competition e-Government. These "mini-sections " can be upgraded to full sections, as soon as sponsoring for them is found.
• What are the different types of content in each sections?

  Features of Section coverage :

  • Relevant news (see above)
  • LinksDossiers: summarizing and monitoring specific EU Policy issues; aggregating links to EU institutions, governments, industry think tanks and NGOs
    • quick introduction to the main issues of the debate
    • background information
    • policy positions
    • next steps
  • External Analysis: complementing our dossiers with external sources of insight ( with content partners such as think tanks and NGOs and also academics and scientifics
  • Overviews: comparing the main positions or data in a visual way
  • Email Newsletters (Update Email): daily monitoring and weekly summary of your favourite policy section's news
• Additional valuable content

  Additional valuable content:

  • Guide of 10.000 EU Actors contact details
  • "Yellow Pages" service sections, (i.e. EU consultancies section). Other "service sections" will be developed in the future in order to bring more services to the EU professionals
  • Agenda: Brussels, EU and international events at a glance
  • Search engine & Archives: quick access to all EurActiv content

• Mobile version

  Get the EurActiv.com live headlines on your mobile by using our EU News service. Containing headlines and short abstracts of new articles, the EU News service offers to our visitors access to the latest EurActiv content. The content is available free of charge in English, French and German.

  If you are able to access the internet on your mobile, type into your phone's internet browser one of the following addresses:

  • English version: mobile.euractiv.com
  • French version: mobile.euractiv.com/fr
  • German version: mobile.euractiv.com/de

  Bookmarking saves your favourite sites so that you can find them again later. Whilst using the EU News Service you can do this by selecting the 'Bookmark', 'Add bookmark' or 'Favourites' option from your phone's menu. In future, simply select the EU News link from your 'Bookmarks'/'Favourites' menu to go straight to EU News Service. For further help with bookmarking, consult your mobile's user manual.

Back to question list 

Financing

• Who provided the start-up capital?

  The initial capital was provided by the founder, Christophe Leclercq and his family, and is sufficient to sustain the company for several years to come. Most team members are also shareholders.

  Questions? Mail to publisher@euractiv.com

• Are you looking for investors?

  As we expand across Europe, we might raise some more equity. For the current operations, we do not need new sources of money.

• What business model does EurActiv use?

  EurActiv's services are financed from several sources, in order to provide free services and ensure independence:

  • Sponsoring: support from international corporations or professional service companies. Numerous companies wish to build a constructive reputation and/or to communicate their expertise within EU policy circles. They can do so by sponsoring EurActiv in general or by supporting a specific section, a Country Dossier or a LinksDossier.
  • EurActors : federations, consultants, regions and NGOs that need to communicate and network through the EU Brussels circles.
  • EU Projects : EU or national funding, due to the 'public service' or 'demonstration' value dimension of some services. Respecting independence, and never more than half of EurActiv's funding.
  • Advertising: internet ads, relevant to EU Actors readership. Also advertising pages in 'paper' summaries on EU policy debates.
  • EurActiv is preparing a new business model Content sales and especially content syndication for intranet.

Back to question list 

The company 

• So you are an Internet start-up?

  We are a new media, using the best technology available. 20 years ago, we would have been paper-based, 10 years ago we would have used faxes, today we use the Internet, tomorrow, who knows?

• You receive funding from the European Commission and sponsoring from large corporate sponsors: does that influence your coverage of the European institutions?

  No. The Commission and the corporate sponsors can give feedback on the policy areas we cover as one of the criteria for opening new sections. But they do not determine the coverage. In fact, sponsors are generally eager to see balanced coverage, including NGOs and links to the press. We also have clear guidelines in the editorial team concerning our principles: transparency, efficiency and neutrality. In 2004 “Fondation EurActiv” was established to enhance further our independence. An advisory council of independent people from academia, NGO’s, other media and think-tanks advices EurActiv on media independence.

• Who are your competitors?

  EurActiv has few direct competitors. Some other media do provide news on EU policies, but each with its own specialty, for example printed publications European Voice, EIS and Agence Europe, and of course Europa itself. Most online media are using a subscription based business model.

  Moreover, none of them are doing the same. We focus on the non-institutional sector, upstream of policy proposals, and providing value-adding overviews and links.

• What is unique about EurActiv?

  EurActiv's coverage concentrates less on the institutional side of EU policies and more on policy debates upstream (i.e. before the institutional legislative process begins). We also look at policies from the private sector perspective, meaning essentially industry, NGOs and the national press.

  EurActiv's use of a powerful document database system allows it to link to all relevant documents and policy positions, shortening the time to find the right information for EU Actors.

Back to question list 

The Future

• Will EurActiv content remain mainly in English?

  No, EurActiv is in English, and partly translated in French and German (will be even more in the future). Additional to the three core languages, EurActiv is extending its portal in Central Europe which will add 8 other languages. In total, EurActiv is available in 11 languages.

• Will EurActiv be taken over by media giants like Pearson or Bertelsmann?

  No, on the contrary, EurActiv has plans for the takeover of one of the large European media groups! Seriously, we like to co-operate with many partners, and already do. See our CrossLingual network, which included some large national media. We might co-operate with even larger ones in the future, but wish to retain our independence.

Back to question list 

CrossLingual™ Help

• In what languages can I access EurActiv.com?

  EurActiv.com is now CrossLingual(tm)! This means that the site can be browsed in the three working languages of the EU: English, French and German.

  Even more, the CrossLingual Network is offering 8 additional languages.

• How can I choose the language I want?

  EurActiv.com uses English as its default language. You can easily change the language to German or French by clicking on the language button (little flags as shown below) of your choice on the menu at the top of the page.

The site will stay in the selected language even when you navigate to other sections until you choose another langauge.

You may also visit our CrossLingual partners sites by using the flags located on the top of the homepage.

• Is everythingtranslated in all three languages?

  All interfaces are available in English, French and German, as well as the homepage and the section start pages.

  For the time being, many older original documents on EurActiv.com are in English only. More recent articles, however, have their titles and abstracts translated into German and French. In this case, the original version of the text is displayed against a grey background to indicate that it is in its original language and has not yet been translated.

  We are working very hard to bring you more and more CrossLingual documents (translated in all three languages), and to provide you with links in your language.

• Back to question list