During these turbulent times, we at The Local pledge to provide you with all the essential news and information you need to stay informed with what's happening in the country where you live or love to visit.

 

Over the coming months we promise to:

 

• Bring you everything you need to know about how the coronavirus crisis continues to impact European countries over the coming weeks and months.
• Explain all the rules, regulations or health guidelines you have to follow 
• Cover essential issues from travel and taxes, to jobs and work permits, borders and Brexit.
• Answer your crucial questions and ask them, on your behalf, to authorities and we'll help you learn the local language in each country.

 

The weeks ahead will be extremely challenging for us at The Local given advertising revenue has plunged by around 70 percent compared to last year.

 

We have survived the crisis up until now because of the thousands of readers who became members in recent months and the thousands more who renewed their memberships. We are very grateful, as are our regular readers.

 

 

Without our members' support we wouldn't have been able to produce the articles, many of which we made free to all, that millions are reading each month.

 

We currently have around 25,000 members of The Local community. We've come a long way from when the The Local began in 2004 in the form of a newsletter sent to 12 people in a language class.

 

But our urgent goal is to grow our community to over 40,000 so we can cover our costs, become sustainable and not have to rely on advertising for survival.

 

Every member counts, so we could do with your help to spread the word. Tell your friends and colleagues about us or share our stories with them.

 

In return we'll continue to work hard and publish dozens of articles each week to explain life around Europe.

 

You should also know we are reinvesting members' contributions by bringing on board new writers, increasing weekend coverage and upgrading our apps.

 

You may also have noticed we are also publishing in depth articles on how different countries are confronting aspects of the coronavirus crisis. 

 

We've taken in depth looks at how Denmark managed to reopen schools so soon after imposing a lockdown, the benefits and downsides of France's attempts to save the livelihoods of self-employed and small business owners, plus whether countries can learn any lessons from Sweden's controversial strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

 

This has been possible thanks to a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network.

 

We hope you stay with us over the coming months as we report and explain all the relevant news and changes that affect you.

 

And remember the best way to keep up to date is by downloading our iOS or Android phone apps, and by joining the conversations on Facebook or Twitter.

 

A big thanks to all our readers from everyone at The Local.