Wallström: "Communication should not be a Brussels affair"[fr][de] 

The White Paper's ambition is to establish communication policy as "a policy in its own right". It moves away from the idea that communication is largely a "Brussels affair" and intends to focus on citizens instead of institutions. "From monologue to dialogue," said Mrs Wallström.

The White Paper is not yet a full action plan but the start of a six-month "listening" or consultation phase during which institutions, governments, industry, NGOs, think tanks and citizens will be able to comment on the main ideas put forward in the paper.

The document states five areas for action in partnership with other institutions, governments and civil society:

• To anchor the right of information in the EU and national institutions, it proposes developing a European Charter or Code of Conduct on Communication.  A special website on Europa will invite reactions from citizens on this document;
• to "empower citizens", it proposes to provide tools and instruments to improve civic education (e.g. a network of teachers, digitally connected European libraries), connect people to each other (e.g. physical and virtual meeting places) and strengthen the relationship between citizens and institutions (e.g. minimum standards for consultation);
• the White Paper wants to work better with the media and focus more on new technologies such as the internet, but does not manage to define exactly how. The idea of a special EU news agency (which was in previous versions of the White Paper) has disappeared in the final version but it still talks about "upgrading Europe by Satellite" and "to explore the desirability of having an inter-institutional service operating on the basis of professional standards";
• understanding European public opinion better:  a network of national experts in public opinion research and an independent Observatory for European Public Opinion are two of the ideas mentioned;
• last but not least, the White Paper underlines the need to "do the job together"  in partnership between EU institutions, member states, regional and local levels, political parties and civil society organisations. The White Paper is particularly weak in this chapter, not going further than some general, non-controversial recommendations.

At a conference entitled 'Will it work?', organised by Friends of Europe, ECAS, Journalists@yourservice and EurActiv on the same day, a range of civil society stakeholder and invited speakers gave the White Paper a generally cautious welcome.

Giles Merritt, director of Friends of Europe, warned against using voter participation as an expression of support for the European project. Merritt thus recalled that a high turnout had landed the Constitution a resounding 'No' in France and in the Netherlands while it was a low turnout that secured a 'Yes' in Spain. 

Willy De Backer, editor-in-chief of EurActiv.com, stated his disappointment at the absence of a political dimension that would also involve the political parties: "It is very unpolitical. There is very little about where we want the European project to go. There needs to be more interaction between the European public sphere and national politics." 

Maria João Rodrigues, Special Advisor to the European Commission on the Lisbon Strategy, said that there was a need to leverage so-called multipliers to communicate Europe, pointing to persons ranging from business people to school teachers. 

Claes de Vreese, Professor of Political Communication and Director of The Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), called on the EU to stop the victimisation of itself. Getting bad press is part of the game, he said, and argued that news is always driven by conflict, and thus "Euroscepticism is not so bad for the visibility of the EU project". He also urged the Commission to stop dreaming about creating a European public sphere. "There is only such a thing as a Europeanisation of the national public spheres." 

Correspondent of French daily Libération, Jean Quatremer, said that the Commission only tends to worry about communication when things go wrong, i.e the Constitution referenda. He went on to point out that all the Commission has to say about the raging Arcelor-Mittal takeover battle is that it will apply the EU competition rules. This is in spite of the fact that it is a matter which concerns not only people's jobs but also the steel industry, which historically was at the heart of the European project. 

Giles Merritt concluded the conference by saying that the four non-institutional organisers will run a parallel process of debating the EU's communication policy. In that context, Fondation EurActiv presented a draft Yellow Paper in response to the whole communication package of the Commission (see EurActiv 1 February 2006)

Other stakeholders also reacted to the White Paper. JEF, the Young European Federalists, broadly welcomed the White Paper, but questioned whether the EU was ready to pay for the goods: "We support the main features of the document and especially welcome the decision to broaden the existing programmes concerned with involving European citizens in Europe. However, given the financial restraints of the proposed Financial Perspectives for 2007-2013 it is highly questionable if these announcements will not remain as further holes in the cheese," said Jan Seifert, JEF president. 

Timothy Kirkhope, a conservative UK MEP, said: "This plan was supposed to bring the EU closer to its citizens but I fear it will only end up making the gap even wider. People across Europe are communicating their message to the EU and it is a message of dissatisfaction. The Commission should perhaps concentrate less on communicating and more on listening."

Graham Watson, leader of the Liberals and Democrats in the European Parliament, welcomed Vice-President Wallström's new focus on a citizen-based approach: "Citizens feel ignored, uncertain of the motives of Brussels' policy makers and no longer certain of what the European Union is actually for. If the EU is to become more relevant it needs to spend more time focusing on what really matters to its citizens."