We are looking for 2,500 new members to ensure EUobserver's next 25 years

This year, EUobserver turns 25-years old. A quarter century.

Since our little online newspaper was founded in Brussels in 2000, we have covered the EU through its ups and downs.

Through treaty changes, enlargement, the financial crisis, the euro crisis, Covid-19 and Russia’s war in Ukraine, our small but dedicated team of reporters have strived to provide straight reporting.

Not coloured by national, corporate or political biases, and always through the lens of fundamental values which unite the countries of our beleaguered bloc, we’ve focused both on the most important developments and the issues that others ignore.

During these years, we’ve seen other EU affairs publications come and go, and others develop varying ways to serve certain needs or audiences.

In many ways, we’ve remained unchanged.

First, when it comes to our independence. Despite financial hardship at times, we’ve maintained an absolute stance on who has a say about our coverage; nobody, but us and our readers.

EUobserver has never positioned itself as a broker between different stakeholder groups, and thus has never had to compromise on investigating anyone or anything.

Second, our dedication to factual reporting. Even when attacked by numerous lawsuits seeking to expunge damning coverage, we’ve fought back and relied on our "high deontological standards", as the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom put it.

Third, our belief in journalism as a tool for protecting democracy. That might sound lofty, but in simple terms it means that we firmly hold to the fact that a well-informed public is the best way to ensure functioning and representative institutions that benefit us all.

And that third point brings us to where we would like to change.

Not in our belief, but in the way we aim to serve and reach a growing audience of diverse citizens.

As anyone does, we see the way people consume information changing around us. In some ways it has never been easier to reach people with journalism, but in others it has never been harder to keep doing so.

Fragmentation of the information environment — we’re now not only competing with other news media, but also with individual creators, streaming services, games and anything else people can choose to spend time on — means that it’s more important than ever to have a direct connection with the people who want to spend time with us.

Additionally, according a report released by Reporters Without Borders on Friday 2 May, the funding situation for independent media has never been more dire. “The global state of press freedom is now classified as a “difficult situation” for the first time in the history of the Index,” it reads.

So to celebrate this — honestly quite amazing — anniversary, and to address these challenges, we’re looking to introduce more ways to interact with and serve you, our members and readers.

And at the same time we’re kicking off a campaign to find 2,500 new supporting members who believe, like us, that EU democracy needs independent watchdogs — not to punish wrongdoing, but to provide citizens with better information to make decisions.

We need your help.

As you know, the number of people reached by our articles is determined for a large part by algorithms. But just like democracy, those algorithms are informed by choices of individuals.

If you care about what we do, and what we can do for you in the future, we’d like to ask you to take your stake in EU democracy and help spread our goal, our mission and our journalism far and wide.

And if you can, sign up for a supporting membership to ensure that EU citizens can get the information they need to make decisions that affect policy that has consequences for all of us.

By reading us, you're already an active participant in EU democracy.

By supporting us, you're taking a stake in it.

Join us.