In the opening even of Think About It three blogging MEPs answered the questions of European bloggers. Richard Corbett (Socialist) said he does not allow for comments because another organized party would immediately fill it up. But all comments are welcome in e-mail. Christofer Fjellner (People’s Party) has a bilingual blog. Jules Maaten (Liberal Democrats) also has an interactiv site. The discussion showed the difficulties of European politics: even in such an event most questions were related to national domestic politics. Here are some points I have found interesting.

Mr Fjellner said his main concern is protectionism, and hopes that while left-wing governments may spend a lot of money of the next generations on on bail-outs, but hopes that trade policy will not be altered. He also believes that there is no need for more regulation but better regulation. The mortgage companies that had started the current crisis in the US where actually state-owned companies. Mr Maaten

Mr Corbett argued that the Lisbon Treaty would make the safeguard that all ministers are controlled by either the European Parliament or national assemblies. At the moment there is no effective control on the ministers what deals they strice in the European Council. He thinks that this would be very important to protect liberties for instance. I hope that massage somehow makes it accross the Irish sea.

I have asked a very simple question from the three MEPs: have they ever received comments on their blogs outside their national constitutency, have they ever answered them and if they are aware of other bloggers or incoming links who refer to them from different European countries from where they are elected? Mr Fjellner received a few comments and links from outside Sweden, but his blogging is almost entirely Swedish, so there has not been any real cross-border blogging. Mr Cobbett does not allow for comments, and did not expand futher. Mr Maaten gets some comments on YouTube, otherwise his blog is in Dutch, infrequently posted, and has mostly Dutch and very few Flemish (Dutch-speaking Belgian) comments. So they are certainly not in the centre of the European blogosphere.