WE PARTNER ON IN-DEPTH REPORTING AT SOURCE
WE PARTNER ON IN-DEPTH REPORTING AT SOURCE
Our primary purpose is the joint reporting and publication of investigative journalism with a focus on European topics to understand how power structures affect European communities.
The basis for cooperation among EIC member organizations is the regular sharing of information and consultations on possible story ideas. We have regular meetings and work on several fronts: tackling European stories; finding, compiling, processing or analyzing big data-sets; developing under Free Software license our own Network collaborative tools, platforms und information design.
We take a long-term approach and therefore involve in our collaborative projects the generation #25 to work together with senior reporters and editors.
This is a non-exclusive Network, meaning that members can be part of other Networks, but only one medium or media outlet from each European country can be an EIC member, ensuring national exclusivity.
Stefan Candea is coordinating the Network communication, workflow and tools development. Each investigative collaboration will have him working closely with the story initiator to decide on the work plan, tools and publication schedule.
The Board of EIC decides on EIC partnerships, membership, future developments and the agenda of EIC General Assembly. The Board members are journalists working with the EIC member newsrooms. Current Board is made of Alain Lallemand (Le Soir), Jörg Schmitt (Der Spiegel), Yann Pilippin (Medipart), Zeynep Sentek (The Black Sea) and Alfred Weinzierl (Der Spiegel) who is also the Chair of the Board. Jörg (joerg.schmitt [at] spiegel.de) is currently EIC.network outreach officer.
Here are our governing principles:
We believe networks are here to stay. Due to their structure and methodology, collaborative networks are one of the few mechanisms able to keep up with the globalized power structures (ie. governments, corporations), thus becoming the only way forward for investigative journalism.
EIC is putting together different mind-sets, organization types and skills. This is insuring a flow of new challenges, ideas and approaches. Our aim is to build a European network to focus on independent, high-quality cross-border and European investigative journalism projects.
Our focus areas: (un)organized crime, environment, sport, public spending, corporate corruption, lobby, public health, religious groups, state aid, military & secret services, banks & finance, labor markets, migration.
Discussions related to establishing this European Network started in 2015 and involved Jörg Schmitt, Jürgen Dahlkamp, Alfred Weinzierl and Klaus Brinkbäumer from Spiegel and Stefan Candea from the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism. Alain Lallemand from Le Soir joined the group, and later John Hansen from Politiken, Milorad Ivanovic from Newsweek Serbia, Florian Klenk from Falter, Paula Guisado from El Mundo, Vlad Odobescu from The Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism, Michael Bird from The Black Sea, Fabrice Arfi from Mediapart and Vittorio Malagutti from L'Espresso.
EIC partners are pulling together resources to do investigative research but also to develop tools and information design. We are building tools under a Free Software Licence and the lead developer is DER SPIEGEL IT department, but all EIC member organizations commit themselves to contribute.
During the coming months EIC will decide on future partnerships related to stories or tools development.
How the EU pays Turkey to keep out refugeesAn investigation by Danwatch, Politiken, and The Black Sea with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network looks into the programmes paid for by the EU to Turkey to keep refugees out of Europe. Contracts show that the EU bought 83 million Euro worth of military vehicles, surveillance equipment and patrol boats for the Turkish military to seal and police its borders with Europe and Syria, which experts argue might contravene international humanitarian law. In-depth research into the six billion Euro EU-Turkey refugee 'Facility', signed in 2016 and financed by European tax payer money, reveals that it suffers from lack of transparency, slow implementation, harassment by Turkey of NGOs partners, and a rush to play politics.
» moreThis investigation analyzes the criminal policy instituted by the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo.Court Secrets is a project by EIC.network which will publish a series of articles based on over 40,000 documents, financial statements, diplomatic cables and correspondence, cross-checked with public sources.
» moreThe Malta Files show how the Mediterranean state works as a pirate base for tax avoidance inside the EU. Although profiting from the advantages of EU membership, Malta also welcomes large companies and wealthy private clients who try to dodge taxes in their home countries.Over the last three months, EIC.network has dug into hundreds of thousands of documents that show how Malta operates a tax system where companies pay the lowest tax on profits in the EU. This damages the budgets of other EU-countries and reveals a weakness in the European Union, which allows member states sovereign rights over their taxation.
» moreThe largest leak in the history of sports reveals murky financial transactions in the world of European professional football and exposes the tax tricks employed by some of the Continent's biggest stars.The data includes 18.6 million documents, including original contracts with secret subsidiary agreements, emails, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and photos. The data set extends into the year 2016. EIC partners will publish their findings in the coming weeks, allowing for an unprecedented look into the gloomy depths of the modern football industry.
» moreEast Europe’s shadow gun market is fuelling terrorism in the west, as criminal gangs use legal loopholes and open borders to traffic weapons.An international team of journalists who are part of the newly established network European Investigative Collaborations has spent three months detailing how Brussels’ failure to impose comprehensive directives has facilitated the sale of deadly weapons.
» moreIn 2016, European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) started publishing in-depth reportage focused on events critical to Europe. The network currently includes more than 100 journalists, information-designers and technologists working together on specific large-scale projects. Due to our many meetings and conversations, small groups of journalists in our network discuss ideas for cross-border stories and publish articles that enlist the talents of the reporters from our pool of professionals. Links to such stories are listed below.
» moreIf you want to get in touch please communicate with Stefan Candea at [email protected] (pgp: 0x8234F8D4A624D9F4).