The 'Questions for Europe' project seeks to encourage candidates, constituents and experts "to engage in a dialogue through online video".
The project, which becomes active for the public later this week, primarily relies on user-generated content, inviting citizens to submit questions to candidate MEPs by uploading videos to a dedicated channel on YouTube, a popular online video community owned by US giant Google.
Euronews will broadcast a selection of the questions – and MEPs, think-tank representatives and other Brussels commentators' answers to them – at the end of its half-hourly news bulletins, which reach 256 million households in 144 countries.
It will also encourage its reporters to draw upon the videos for inspiration in their own interviews.
Echoes of MyBarackObama.com
'Questions for Europe' looks to draw inspiration from the communications success of Barack Obama's US presidential campaign, said Bill Echikson, senior manager for communications at Google.
Embracing innovative new online tools to engage citizens was considered by analysts to have played a central role in the former Illinois senator's victory (EurActiv 04/11/08).
The European Parliament and the EU executive already have their own YouTube channels, but Questions for Europe's backers stressed that the new initiative was completely independent from the EU institutions' preparations for the elections.
"There is no official partnership with the EU institutions," said Echikson, and "there is no official partnership with the candidates or political parties either," added Euronews managing director and board member Michael Peters.
Asked what the motivation behind the project was, Echikson said "we remembered the Obama 'Yes we can' phenomenon, and thought, 'Can we do this in Europe?'" "It's too early to say whether this will take off like 'Yes we can'. It's an experiment. It's something new," he added.
"The glossiest veneer isn't always the most authentic in politics," added Aaron Ferstman, director of political communications at YouTube. "Raw can be better sometimes, which is where YouTube comes in."
'Not a marketing exercise'
Refuting suggestions that the whole enterprise was simply a marketing exercise for all concerned, Peters said the project was "about giving concrete, professional answers to individual questions".
"It's a question of educating people. We are trying to be a bit of a Wikipedia on the EU elections," Peters said. "It's about putting intelligent user-generated content on air."
"It's also about having the right questions available at the right time when we're interviewing MEPs. It's not a question of using our partnership with YouTube in a marketing way," he insisted.
Euroscepticism 'welcome'
Some observers present at yesterday's launch suggested that the channel could become a Eurosceptic hub, as most public contributions to such initiatives tended to be anti-EU.
"We're not afraid of it becoming a Eurosceptic channel. We know that it will be mainly Eurosceptic, and we're waiting for that. We need all points of view for it to be credible," insisted Euronews' Peters. "Please Eurosceptics, come to us," he urged.
This is not the first time that YouTube has been cited as a haven for Eurosceptic thought. A recent address by UK Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan attracted 2.25m views on the site after being initially spread virally via blogs.
Indeed, a senior Commission official told a Konrad Adenauer Stiftung workshop last month that although Eurosceptic parties have "limited resources", they have "creative minds" working to leverage new media to get their message out (EurActiv 28/04/09).
Conversely, the EU executive and "established parties" are "too slow" to react to new media, the official lamented.
But YouTube's Ferstman yesterday rejected suggestions that the new website would become a haven for anti-EU sentiment. "It is up to the parties being silenced to step up and be more vocal. They could add video responses to beliefs already up on the site, or set up their own channels," he said.
Europeans will head to the polls to elect the next EU assembly from 4-7 June.
