Margot Wallström
Member of the European Commission responsible for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy

Need to stimulate a wider debate with the public

Address to the Committee on Culture and Education, European Parliament
Brussels, 4 October 2005

Mr Chairman,

Dear Members of the Culture Committee,

Thank you for inviting me today. I am please to have this opportunity to discuss with you challenges of communicating Europe.

1. Communicating with Citizens: Strategic Priority - 3 Key Principles

Even if this is not new to you, I would like to stress once more how much for this Commission communicating with the citizens of the European Union has been a key strategic objective right from the start, even before events forced all of us to focus on this task in a particular way.

From the very beginning we have engaged in a lengthy and comprehensive analysis and consultation on this vital dimension of European politics within the Commission itself and in an equally comprehensive dialogue with many of the actors concerned, and first and foremost with the European Parliament.

As a result, the Commission has developed a new approach to European communication, based on the three strategic principles you may already know, which all clearly put the citizens at the heart of European policies:

Firstly, the Commission will further improve its efforts to listen to citizens and to take their views and concerns into account;

Secondly, it will communicate how its policies affect their everyday lives, and

Thirdly, it will go local and adapt its communication to the different citizens' sensitivities according to their country, region, and language, but also their age, sex, profession, etc.

For the sake of efficiency and swiftness, we decided to implement this new approach in two different successive steps. First, an internal Action Plan to organise ourselves in the Commission better, secondly a White Paper on Communication to address all issues at stake with our partners.

2. Action Plan to Improve Communicating Europe

The Commission adopted the Action Plan to Improve Communicating Europe on 20 July this year, just before the summer break.

This plan details fifty very pragmatic actions to make more professional and more effective the Commission's already existing comprehensive communication work - in partnership with all its stakeholders. For each action we have set a timeline, and most of them are to be carried out immediately, that is, within the next twelve months.

To mention some examples of these actions only:

• We are introducing mechanisms to strengthen - within the whole Commission, and first and foremost among us Commissioners ourselves - the political ownership of communicating European policies;
• the Commission will make better use of those communication tools people prefer,
• that is of course audiovisual media and internet,
• and it will do this in the language citizens understand;
• it will provide its staff with specific training in communication skills,
• and recruit communication specialists;
• it will integrate communication aspects into policy formulation right from the beginning,
• and it will reinforce the Commission's Representations in the Member States
• and help them better focus on acting as our "ears and mouth on the ground" by simplifying and reducing their administrative burden;
• we will also ask our Representations to intensify their co-operation with the Information Offices of the European Parliament in the Member States,
• and where it seems appropriate, these actions will be planned and implemented in partnership.

In order to allow us to start working hands-on right away without any further delay, the European Parliament could greatly support us by seeing to it that there be no budgetary obstacles to the successful implementation of our Action Plan - budgetary reserves for instance would seriously jeopardize its success - to the detriment of all our work.

3. White Paper on communication Policy

Co-operation with the EP's Information Offices brings me to the next point. I think we all acknowledge that communicating with European citizens is a task that goes far beyond the Commission's remit. Therefore, we are working on a White Paper on Communication Policy, which will be meant to engage all stakeholders.

In the White Paper the Commission will set out the policy vision and the initiatives that it thinks have to be undertaken in the medium and long term in cooperation with the other actors.

Among these actors, of course, the other European institutions and particularly the European Parliament have an essential part to play. Both the Commission and the Parliament already have a long-standing good cooperation in this area, which has gained even further momentum in the last months and which I would wish to become even closer, something the Commission is ready for, as you can see from our Action Plan.

In this context I would like to say that I am very impressed by what I am inclined to call the EP's own Action Plan on Communication, which foresees quite a lot of measures similar and parallel to the ones we are taking, such as: strengthening of your external information offices, revamping your web site, upgrading your audiovisual activities etc. etc.

Once again I note with pleasure that we are on the same line both in theory and in practice. In practice as I just underlined, and in theory as many of what I have just described of the Commission's approach will sound familiar to you from your own report on communication drafted by Mr Herrero.

May I take this opportunity today here with you to present my preliminary thoughts for the White Paper.

To start with, the White Paper will aim at establishing the communication policy as a "policy in its own right" to be developed and carried out jointly by all community institutions. It will outline the fundamental principles and objectives which should guide the development of a communication policy for the European Union.

At the same time, the White Paper will be more than a paper on communication. It will be part of the broader objective of reinforcing democracy in Europe and connecting the European project to citizens. In this context, the White Paper will address issues like citizens' right to communication, communication as a crucial tool for citizens' empowerment, communication as the foundation of the European public sphere. In other words, it will be a contribution to the construction of a "European democratic infrastructure".

Based on these principles and on the work done over the last few years, the White Paper will propose the main themes for work and action in the short, medium and long term.

• Let me give you just some examples of these themes: Democracy and new technologies: Communicating Europe on Television and Internet.
• Develop and strengthen "European citizenship" through "citizens' networks"
• From blame-game to cooperation: the role of Member States and of national institutions.
• Communicate Europe in the rest of the world.

Of course we don't aim at presenting an exhaustive list of actions at this stage.

With the White Paper, we will launch a broad consultation process in order to give all stakeholders the possibility to define and organise their input. And all stakeholders means really all of them. Apart from the European institutions and bodies this includes:

• Member State authorities at all levels: national, regional, and local;
• Civil society at all levels: social partners, NGOs, associations;
• Experts at all levels: constitutional affairs, public affairs, public relations,
• And, last but not least, media at all levels: from the biggest audiovisual channels to the smallest local newspaper.

The consultation process will be open to all of these stakeholders, and we want all of them to get involved. And I am particularly looking forward to your input.

4. Plan D: Dialogue, Debate, and Democracy

The natural link between communication and democracy brings me to my last point. Good communication is essential for a healthy democracy. However, the public debate on Europe following the referenda in France and the Netherlands has shown that at present there are many different views or understandings about what Europe is for and where it is heading. This is why we need a new approach not only to communication, but to the future of Europe altogether.

We don't have quick-fix solutions to the current crisis. Nobody has. My insistence on Plan D as for Dialogue, Debate and Democracy builds on the awareness and the conviction that we need to engage in a long-term process to connect citizens to the European ideal and to invigorate European democracy.

I am preparing a Communication to be adopted by the Commission on 12 October on Plan D as part of the Commission response to the period of reflection and the organisation of national debates as agreed by the European Council last June. I believe we need to engage in a patient, humble and credible exercise of confidence building, confidence of citizens towards the institutions, confidence among community institutions, confidence between community institutions and Member States. As I said, this is a long term process. But there are no shortcuts.

I believe that we should hope to come out of this reflection period with a change in the current atmosphere of disillusionment and lack of consensus on the way ahead. This is a very ambitious goal, and there are no chances to achieve it without a strong commitment of all the actors concerned, and the role of the Parliament may be crucial in this respect.

But it is clear that the primary responsibility is for Member States. We need greater commitment from their side. National debates cannot be steered from Brussels. We must respect the national and regional specificities of each debate.

My appeal is to join forces and put some pressure on Member States to deliver on this, in a helpful and constructive manner.

But there is obviously a Community dimension to the national debates and the Commission is ready to play its part in the framework of plan D.

The range of initiatives with my colleagues at the Commission seminar on are clustered around three themes:

1. stimulating a wider public debate,
2. promoting citizens' participation in the democratic process
3. tools to generate a dialogue on European policies

The list is now being finalised, but I could give here some concrete examples of the initiatives we are thinking about:

In agreement with the Member States, the President and Commissioners will visit Member States to stimulate and add momentum to the national debates. We want to see the European Parliament President and Members of the European Parliament involved in these debates.

We aim to open up our Representations in the Member States to the public. The objective is that once a month the general public can have their individual questions responded to. I hope that the European Parliament information offices will take a similar approach and we can work together on these events.

We intend to organise "round tables" with civil society to explore the possibility to build "democratic infrastructure" throughout Europe. I would like to see the European Parliament fully integrated into this project.

On one point we have to be clear again: This cannot be achieved without proper financial resources. We are at a delicate stage in the discussions on the PRINCE budget line for 2006. I hope that the European Parliament will agree to appropriate funding without reserve since this leads to the money being blocked until the middle of next year. Plan D cannot be implemented without an increase of funding for dialogue activities.

5. Conclusion

I know that you are also passionate about this common task of ours which is connecting with the European citizen and I will be more than pleased to discuss this with you.

And I definitely plan to stay in touch with you: As soon as the White Paper is adopted, I will look for the first opportunity to come again to discuss it with you.

Thank you