Margot Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission with responsibility for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy, will take part in a live internet chat today to mark the anniversary of the launch of her blog in January 2005. Chat participants will include members of the public who are regular commentators in her blog.

The online discussion takes place on Thursday 19 January 2006 at 17.00 CET, with the number of participants limited for practical reasons. However a transcript of the debate will be published subsequently. More details will be made available on Wallström’s blog.

Wallström has made 49 blog postings over the past year and received over 4500 comments from readers. Her blog currently has about 15,000 regular readers from all over the world and her website has received close to 1 million hits during the year.

She shared her views with the public last year on many important issues, including the rejection of the Constitution in France and The Netherlands, the London bombings, the Global Call to Action against Poverty, Climate Change, Globalisation, China, Development Aid, EU-US Relations, the Budget and the general future of the EU as well as giving an insight to her work as a European Commissioner and occasional private reflections on life and family.

Wallström is one of the few top level policymakers to use a blog as a means of communication with a wider audience. Others include Dutch deputy prime minister and finance minister Gerrit Zalm (in Dutch), and Denny Hastert, speaker of the US House of Representatives.