The European Commission and Courrier International are launching PRESSEUROP.EU - the first multilingual website for press articles on European affairs on May 26th. PRESSEUROP.EU offers a selection of European and international press articles in 10 languages (Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish).

The PRESSEUROP.EU portal aims to become a major provider of general and political information - gathered independently from a wide range of sources - concerning European current affairs. Under the terms of its contract it enjoys complete editorial freedom.

Alongside EuRaNet (European Radio Network, launched in April 2008) and EU TV Net (scheduled for 2010), PRESSEUROP is an expression of the European Institutions' wish to facilitate, encourage and support the establishment of a European public forum for communication, discussion and debate.

The background:

As part of its policy to 'communicate Europe in Partnership' and to support the emergence of a European public forum, the Commission has launched this idea and put it into effect by organising a public-procurement procedure. The PRESSEUROP consortium coordinated by Courrier International (and including Internazionale in Italy, Forum Polityka in Poland and Courrier Internacional in Portugal, with the support of Cafebabel) has proposed an innovative, dynamic, interactive portal which is constantly updated.

PRESSEUROP.EU makes publicly available:

* a selection of international and European press articles (both written and on-line),
* press reviews, news in brief and a weekly news round-up,
* illustrations (computer graphics, photographs, videos, cartoons, etc.),
* a daily newsletter on the day's current events and the latest content,
* archived articles.

This service will gradually be made available in the 23 EU official languages. PressEurop's ultimate aim is to help develop the European public domain and to enable Internet users to form their own opinion on the basis of articles and in-depth studies presenting a variety of carefully considered views.