La conférence de Berlin sur la communication demande des "avancées pratiques"

a) On the overall strategy, Commissioner Wallström  repeated some key messages from the 2006 White Paper and announced a new action plan for Spring 2007. Taking a long-term view, she did not expect short-term results, but rather suggested that ’it will take another 10 years’. Answering questions from EurActiv on the run up to the European elections in two years, she talked of working together with the Parliament, involving member states and ‘talking to youth’, but did not seem ready to reveal any bold actions from her upcoming Action Plan.  

Many speakers pointed to the "Brussels blame game" as one of the reasons for bad EU communication , and called for stronger EU interest and political will from national and local politicians. Experienced experts recalled that they had already heard this 10 or 20 years ago - when the EU was not yet in an institutional crisis – and that public support has always been the Achilles’ heel of EU integration. 

b) Regarding the relevant level of debate, there was a convergence of views, but implicitly only, without many calls for overall decentralisation. 

A representative of the German SPD brought into discussion a concept that many speakers built upon: “the EU is an arena for debate, not a ‘product’  (implicitly: a product marketed like consumer goods, ‘top down’, with streamlined messages). However, what was meant was a collection of arenas, not one arena. The White Paper idea of a ‘European Public Sphere’ (meaning building up EU level debates), found little support in the short term: most speakers focused on national, regional and sectoral debates, with some cross-border interconnection and coordination. 

Many speakers, including the Commission leadership and national politicians, focused on regional and local communication, emphasising the importance of reponding to citizens' questions and better informing regional journalists in a localised way. They did not seem to make the conceptual link that EU-level priorities and centralised communication organisations do not appear to be in line with this strategy. 

The need for decentralisation was identified strongly by most participants, however without explicitly questioning current public organisations in place. In the EU system, dominated by the Brussels institutions and Member States, ‘decentralisation’ often means empowering one ministry in each capital, as opposed to ‘de-concentrating’ central resources to numerous networked offices, and going all the way to media agenda-setting by regional, local and civil society organisations.  

c) Regarding agenda-setting and priorities, participants heard both calls for stronger coordination and information (national officials - and DG COM itself - not wishing to discover campaigns  from other DGs by chance), and also calls for national and local agendas. This is not incompatible. For example, Jean Yves Nicolas,  Administrator of www.touteleurope.fr  and now preparing the next French presidency’s PR, called for both ‘taking a national angle, starting from citizen concerns’, and also ‘better ability to forecast and anticipate from [Commission] directorates generals’. German MEP Markus Löning expressed mistrust in trying to synchronise communications across countries as this would not be democracy-based.  

On the Commission’s 2006 communication priorities the Commisioner was self-critical and stated: ‘Every DG wants its topic included, it’s like a Christmas tree!’ She said it would be much more focused in 2008, including notably energy and climate change.

d) Regarding governmental versus civil society and media focus, there were many different views, but mostly pushing toward civil society. 

Management partnerships between DG COM and national ministries for Europe or for communication were hailed officially as a great tool for cooperation, fitting perfectly with the German presidency motto around the 50th anniversary: ‘Together since 1957’.  

Discreetly, dissenting commentators wondered if the time to discuss the agreements was worth the effort, and if money allocated by the Commission was not reducing the national spending by a similar amount, as opposed to funding incremental actions. A Hungarian NGO called for matching funds from the Member State in such cases. As lighter initiatives, a number of EU and State communicators meet and learn efficiently at the ‘Club de Venice’, or in associations like the more recent ‘European Federation of Public Communication Associations’.

Moving away from government implementation, Germany’s State secretary for Europe, Günter Gloser, insisted for his part on informing the regional media and on activating civil society. He mentioned as examples the ‘ European Movement ’ and ‘ Europa Union’, ‘ AktionEuropa.de’ (the civil society pendant to the official Presidency website and a 50th anniversary tour of 50 cities), and the ‘Round table on EU communication’, an informal gathering of relevant actors. 

Several media and associations provided examples, for example Maria-Fernanda Fau of BusinessEurope (formerly UNICE), who recalled that "companies can mobilise people working for them: Europe is [our] business" . Jilian Van Turnhout from the Economic and Social Committee and Minister Noel Treacy, both from Ireland, explained that the second Irish referendum on Nice was won thanks to political parties leaving NGOs to the fore.

e) Regarding the Commission’s own organisation and human resources, Director General Sörensen was unusually modest for a top EU official, and stated: “it’s not a question of number of bureaucrats  [in my DG], but of internal coordination [between DG’s]".

Other experts, including some close to several Commission Representations in the capitals, felt that these offices in the capitals are short of resources, missing spokespersons for key sectors, and overburdened by Brussels-oriented procedures. Asked by EurActiv about posting attachés from sector-specific DGs in the Representations (led by DG COM), Sörensen answered: “I would like to have some people delegated from - for example - DG AGRI, to the countries”, and he elaborated: “I also need to keep enough central resources”.

f) On the Charter or Treaty or programme question, workshop 4 echoed some critical voices on yet another legal document, but did not manage to make one clear recommendation. Rapporteur Richard Upson from ECAS  called for a legislative approach, binding all institutions and Member States and leading to a multi-annual programme, based on existing articles 308 and 151. At the same time, he called for a stocktaking exercise regarding civil society and a Charter of Information and Communication Rights, while not excluding a constitutional amendment in the long run, and building on existing rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.