Conventional wisdom has it that Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) can hardly be more forward than the society it serves, which spells problems for PSB in many Western Balkans countries. But in actual fact in can be at least slightly ahead – provided that it has the international and multi-lateral backing necessary to rise above everyday obstructions.
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The transition to a free and democratic media system in formerly authoritarian countries may be almost as difficult for the revolutionaries themselves as it typically is for the former mouthpieces of defunct regimes. Can the European Union help?
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The EU has masterminded the very rules of public procurement, but it is also one of the largest tendering authorities itself. The scope of design of tenders is such that it may make or break entire companies and organisations, and affect the implementation of public policy beyond the specific objectives of any individual tender.
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Perhaps there just are no stakeholders of the Digital Agenda as a whole, only stakeholders of a number of particular Digital Agenda subsections. Is the Agenda therefore too encompassing a policy after all?
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What Europe is still missing is a substantial intellectual debate about the Digital Agenda and its implications for civil society and politics. Europe dearly needs innovative and groundbreaking outside-the-box-yet-pragmatic thinking at the interface between technology and the public sphere.
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Across all the application areas of the EU’s Digital Agenda policy there are several common and mutually interdependent issues which need to be tackled irrespective of the specific purpose of a technological solution. This is why I first take a look at some of the most important overarching issues at stake. Political analysis will follow in part II.
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Our current notion of democracy has developed within and for the modern nation state. Robert Menasse, however, advocates Europe as a post-national utopia, requiring a fundamentally new and different understanding and practice of democracy that still needs to be developed. “The nation states”, he suggests, “must fade away if we want a system of checks and balances at European level.”
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Non-profit organizations which realise that some of their capabilities have a market value and deploy them accordingly can defend their autonomous status while reducing dependency from external donors, many of whom have an agenda of their own.
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The main issue with the European anthem lies in the fact that it takes a short tune completely out of context and – even worse – re-arranges it into a syrupy, self-contained, instrumental piece of music. The fact that renowned Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan was put in charge of cutting it to size does not do much to alleviate the injustice to the original.
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The FP7 programme and application process are so immensely complicated and difficult that it basically takes a dedicated FP7 expert to identify the appropriate call and to draft a proposal to match the strict format and eligibility criteria officially prescribed for it.
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