Europe's top dailies in 10 languages online

The European Commission and a media consortium launched Tuesday an Internet site allowing people to read articles about Europe from the world's top newspapers in 10 languages.

The "presseurop.eu" site will monitor some 250 newspapers each day, including The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, The Financial Times, The Economist, Corriere della Sera, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the New York Times.

Apart from articles deemed most interesting, the project, led amongst the media consortium by French news weekly Courrier International, will include analyses, press reviews and summaries, as well as cartoons and graphics.

The articles will initially be translated into English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish, then progressively into all of the EU's 23 official languages.

Courrier International chief Philippe Thureau-Dangin said the newsroom would include 10 permanent journalists and a network of freelancers. Selecting and translating the articles would be done "independent" of the commission, the EU's executive body.

He insisted that eurosceptic voices would also be heard.

(c) 2009 AFP