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The success story

September 2000 : Two Erasmus students, Nicola Dell'Arciprete and Adriano Farano, arrive to Strasbourg's Political Studies Institute (IEP) with a revolutionary idea in their baggages: creating the first pan-European media.

January 2001: along with a 12-nationalities group of Erasmus students they create the association Babel International which aims to open up a virtual arena for debating and discussing European issues.

1st February, 2001: publication of Issue 1 on the Internet of www.cafebabel.com in four languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish.

June 2001: the Erasmus year is over and many founders committ themselves to create local offices of cafebabel.com in their countries. It is the diaspora effect.

October 2001: creation of 6 regional cafebabel.com offices.

February 2002: launch of the new website and diversification of editorial content, first Europe-wide advertising campaign.

September 2002: Adriano Farano, Alexandre Heully and Simon Loubris decide to build a European central editorial office in Paris. Their objective is to give cafebabel.com a professional structure.

December 2002: by this date, 13 local offices have been established: Prague, Paris, Strasbourg, Rome, Leeds, Granada were joined by Bologna, Warsaw, Istanbul, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels and Sofia.

January 2003: creation of the European central editorial office in Paris, weekly publication.

September 2003: operations professionalized at central editorial office in Paris, 17 regional local offices in 11 countries, launch of the Caffeine section.

December 2003: launch of the German edition: cafebabel.com published in 5 language versions

2004: consolidation of European central editorial office in Paris with a team of 7 people working full-time. Partnership agreed with French weekly Courrier International. Events organised with numerous personalities in Europe (Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Michel Barnier, Dominique Strauss-Kahn etc.).

May 2004: launch of the Catalan version of website: cafebabel.com published in 6 language versions

February to November 2004: first of series of debates across Europe launched: the Coffee Stormings. Every month, cafebabel.com takes to the road.

June 2004: In recognition of its role in the world of media, cafebabel.com is awarded the “European Initiative Prize 2004” along with French daily La Croix and Radio France Culture, presented by the European Press Club, the Maison de l’Europe and the European Parliament.

November 2004: cafebabel.com’s biggest conference to date organised in Brussels, “Is European federalism dead?” gathering European political personalities such as Bronislaw Geremek and Marco Pannella.

March 2005: with the creation of two new teams in Poland, and one in Hungary, cafebabel.com consists of 20 local offices in 12 European countries.

April 2005: launch of remodelled website, along with two new sections: Brunch with… an informal tête-à-tête with the European personalities of tomorrow, and Tower of Babel, a humorous look at how expressions travel from one language to another.

July 2005: the expansion continues in the east, with a new office in Vilnius, Lithuania and Sofia, Bulgaria.

August 2005: cafebabel.com holds its 1st Babel Academy in the Paris region, with 25 members in attendance

November 2005: cafebabel.com breaks the 100,000 visitors per month mark

February 2006: on the occasion of cafebabel.com’s 5th birthday, cafebabel.com becomes available in Polish, the seventh linguistic version of cafebabel.com.

August 2006: Cities section is launched: every month a local team hosts and guides 5 babel-journalists for a unique features' dossier.

March 2007: babelblogs, the first multilingual blogs, are launched.

July 2007: in the same line, babelforums are launched: the community of babelians goes online.

January 2008: European gastronomy Yum Nyam column is launched.

February 2008: Babel Reporter.

May 2008: a brand new version of the entire website is published. All the contents – magazine, blogs, forums – are organised following a common tag system. Registered readers are offered a multilingual version of cafebabel.com according to their linguistic preferences.