New step for B2

(BRUXELLES2) B2 has just been recognized as an "information and general policy" media, approval given by the CPPAP, the joint commission for publications and press agencies, to media that respect certain conditions. This "label" - little known outside France - is important for us in symbolic terms as well as recognition that a media only "on line" can also be a "useful" information tool. Thank you to all those who supported and guided in this process - especially within the SPIIL (the online press union) - which was not easy.

This approval will allow us todeepen and develop our information, it encourages us to exercise our profession of information all the more: explaining, deciphering certain complex situations or decisions, pointing out where it does not work, but also underlining what produces results, assuming certain editorial positions, even if it means wanting to ire of each other (who generally recognize that we were not wrong ...), which sometimes means going against the current of certain current trends so as not to forget certain areas that are not news. This is our motto: always inform, disturb if necessary, make people think often...

B2 advances today on two legs. On the one hand, a public section (the blog), whose reputation is second to none, which has a more generalist content, on what political Europe is today, its institutions, projects and... . his emotions. On the other hand, a more professional section (the club), available by subscription, where we decipher in greater depth certain policies in particular — foreign policy, peace and security, defense industries —. One makes it possible to ensure and consolidate the development of the other, or even to develop new "services". As the quezako  (included in the subscription or accessible separately), an online encyclopedia on the CFSP/CSDP, enriched and supplemented regularly. In all, we now easily exceed 8000 articles in our archives.

The first returns encourage us. We don't have a very developed commercial approach (very aggressive), no advertising, no sponsor. This allows us to maintain our independence. But word of mouth works, our first readers are loyal to us and others join us, not only at the heart of the European system (Commission, Council, Parliament) but also at the level of international organisations, ministries, diplomatic representations (and not least); universities, think-tanks, companies, journalists, individuals seeking to better understand what this common foreign and security policy could be tomorrow.

The fact of being in French - in an increasingly English-speaking world - is certainly sometimes perceived as a handicap to our development. For us, this is an advantage. And we will continue to defend an approach which, beyond the language, also reflects a difference of conception, of political thought which is not totally innocent in terms of foreign policy. This does not prevent us from looking carefully at what is happening beyond French borders. It's quite the opposite. We read, with pleasure, and transcribe in the language of Molière what is said or woven in London as in Berlin, in Warsaw as in Prague, Rome, Madrid or Athens.

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)