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Where it all began

At the beginning of 2022, we – more or less – stumbled over something strange: there are many local and national media outlets, but popular European newspapers? Not a single one that spans our continent.

Once you've noticed it, you can no longer unsee it. And you start noticing the consequences.

From migration to AI, from the climate crisis to Russia’s war in Ukraine, some of the toughest issues Europe has to face in this decade require Europe to act together. But to build a Europe that thinks and acts together, we Europeans must first know what's happening across our country's borders – and how that impacts us.

We realised that if the far-right develops a new tactic in Austria, it will only take weeks until it’s used in the UK. Switzerland will not be able to regulate the tech giants effectively alone; only the European Union has the necessary leverage. If every country discusses migration on its own, we’ll never achieve a more humane European solution.

And then there is the EU, affecting every aspect of our daily lives, but hiding behind this unique kind of boring complexity that prevents the public from actually understanding and caring what's happening.

So, we set out to create European journalism.

But no one wanted to give us any money. We first tried philanthropic foundations, but they, too, are just focused on their country. We wanted to talk to wealthy people, but we didn’t know anyone, and they did not respond to our emails (if you are one, email us here). But all this time, we talked to journalists.

We always knew that we needed the perspectives from every corner of the continent to create truly European journalism. For every “no” from potential funders, we got ten enthusiastic “yes!” from journalists.

In autumn 2022, we knew: We have to try it – without money, but with the greatest team.

The heroes of The European Correspondent

In a matter of weeks, we gathered a team of journalists from every European country to lend their time without any remuneration to this project that had a great-looking logo, but not much more.

In the past two and a half years, over 340 journalists and team members worked at The European Correspondent – without seeing a single euro. From Lisbon to Yerevan, from London to Kyiv, journalists believed in the necessity of European journalism. From our social media creators to our data journalists, from our app developer to our correspondents and editors, they all share the dedication to make Europe a better place.

Only their passion to create extraordinary stories, their willingness to learn whatever skill was needed, and their belief that if we put our minds to it, we can do it, made our journalism possible.

It took us one day to find a design that was less hostile to the eye, one year to find our philosophy, and until the beginning of this year to pay the first salaries to core team members.

If it weren't for the generosity of everyone involved, The European Correspondent would lie in the graveyard of nice-but-theoretical ideas. And without the financial support of our readers, we would not have reached this point.

For us, it was always clear that this was just the beginning: The European public deserves high-quality journalism. Especially in the last months, we felt that the time for this idea had come, and we knew that if we got the chance to grow and expand, we had to take it!

The journalism the European public deserves

Thanks to our two-year record of publishing every day, the European Commission will now support The European Correspondent with a grant of 2.16 million euros over the next 24 months.

This is our chance to create the journalism the European public deserves. It’s the chance to build the first big European media outlet, not funded by corporations or owned by billionaires, but by Europeans. And we can finally pay our journalists to find the continent's most important stories. If you like what we've written so far, wait to see what we have in store for you.

Here are the details: The deal is structured so that we maintain full editorial independence, and we can bring our journalism to a broader public. The biggest change: We're expanding into six more languages.

It’s the logical step – journalism can only reach every European if it is multilingual. Starting in November, you can read The European Correspondent in German, and in 2026, we're launching French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Ukrainian editions.

Already in August, we'll relaunch our website, an even more stylish way to read our journalism – and as many of you requested, we will add an archive with a search function so you can find anything you're looking for.

We will produce daily vertical videos, revamp our social media, and keep visualising data. There's even a secret project we're not ready to talk about yet.

This grant will also help us with the not-so-glamorous part of building an international media outlet: Marketing spending, more project coordination resources, developer salaries, and more. We can even start our own European journalism training program!

But there's a catch.

When you read this, the clock has started to tick for us.

Over the next two years, The European Correspondent has to learn to fly on its own. To always guarantee that our priority lies with our community, the majority of our funding has to come from our readers. To put a number on it: from 2027 on, we need to make around one million euros annually.

What does that mean?

As a reader, you will keep receiving our editions – The European Correspondent will stay true to itself and keep all our journalism accessible to everyone. And if you find our work valuable, help us build a sustainable foundation so we can stand on our own feet.

Your donation will not only help us reach the one million euros milestone to keep The European Correspondent alive long-term, but also help us with a more immediate challenge: We need to pay for every team member who doesn't live in the EU ourselves – and some of our most interesting stories are from countries like Türkiye or Norway.

We also need your support to further strengthen the organisational backbone of The European Correspondent – the rather dull work that decides an organisation's fate. That's why we ask you to become a supporter today.

And to everyone who has supported The European Correspondent over the past three years through a donation, by giving feedback or offering their time and skills:

Thank you – we would not be here today if it weren't for your support.

To the next 30 years of The European Correspondent!

Stay curious,

Carla, Julius, Philippe
Co-founders of The European Correspondent