Living in Britain, I have never been a European ‘insider’ – but my career has frequently run alongside the great river of European construction.  I have written about the Union, assisted on projects, travelled about Europe and of course engaged in the great British European political debate.

‘The outfield’ is a cricketing term. It refers to the players who inhabit that part of the ground on the periphery of the action. These may have great influence on the game, taking a distant catch or retrieving a ball short of the boundary.  Outfielders gain a sense of perspective from their position.

Where Europe is concerned I try to pick up the broad contemporary threads – the zeitgeist if you will.  I am a friend of the European construction, indeed have campaigned for it through organisations like the European Movement and the Federal Trust.  At the same time I am not an entirely uncritical friend.

I sense at times that the Union lacks critical friends.  It has a tendency to dismiss too easily the criticism of its enemies simply because they are enemies without stopping to ask whether they just might just sometimes have a point. Sometimes it also seems to think that the very attacks of its enemies excuse it in cutting corners, in being more defensive and secretive than it should be.

To a large extent the job of the commentator is to expose the shortcomings of those in power.  It doesn’t matter that the alternatives he proposes might have equal or even greater shortcomings. Nor does the commentator have to take into account the sheer difficulty of some Government decisions.

It is very easy to say – as I have indeed said – that it was wrong for some EU countries to recognise an illegal and unilateral independence in Kosovo. But had I been part of that decision-making process and perhaps forced to choose between alternative evils I might have concluded differently. Nevertheless, this is an issue that deserved wider discussion at the time. We make a great stand about ‘co-operation under the rule of law’ – we must be careful not to fall into believing that ends justify means and breaking it.

Much the same thing can be said about democracy.  The EU preaches democracy, but it is, I regret,  a case of the cobbler’s children being the worse shod. We are far less democratic than we ought to be.

Nevertheless, by standing on the sidelines and blaring his horn, justifiably or not and however misinformed, the commentator is doing the useful job of stimulating the debate. It is impossible to have good governance without a free and vibrant press to shout at it, to mock it, to twist its words and so on. You have only to look at the sad and growing tally of journalists killed around the world to realise the power of the press to keep governments on track.

This especially important in Europe where the genuinely European Press is so small and European Government so big.  EUobserver is one of the very few pan-European publications.  In that respect we are pioneers. I trust that this brave venture into the blogosphere will leave its mark.