Virtual EU proves a big hit

Date: 16/05/1996

TAKE a bit of IGC, a couple of White Papers and some Eurostat statistics, mix them with some netscape navigator, config PPP and a modem of 28.800 baud, stir well and, voilà, your drink is ready. It is called the EU on the Internet.

Just take a look at the ingredients again. It really does not sound very appealing - at least not when compared with other tasty morsels available on the Net such as a tour of the White House, a game of online chess or even a bit of cybersex.

And yet every day, more than 40,000 people sample this EU online cocktail.

That is the number of people who pay a daily visit to the European Union's so-called “home page” on the Internet. And it may come as something of a surprise that a majority of them actually appear to like what they see.

A visit to the EU's home page is a bit like browsing around a library. You go in through the main entrance and then immediatly start looking for directions for where to go next. The home page on your computer can be compared to the signs on the library wall: this way to the fiction section, that way non-fiction, upstairs to reference books - only on the Internet, the directions are known as 'sites' and on the EU's home page they are labelled as 'On the political agenda', 'newsroom', 'the Union institutions', 'the history of the EU' and so on.

So what can you find on these different sites? The answer is a bit of everything.

The information provided by the European Commission for general consumption is very wide-ranging. It includes a short summary of the day's news from the Commission (a copy of the so-called “Midday Express” which is given out to accredited Brussels journalists at the Commission's midday press briefing), a detailed calendar of the EU's activities in the coming weeks, a smattering of White and Green Papers and even the annual report of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).

For those interested in background material on the Intergovernmental Conference, there are about 100 key speeches, interviews, and documents published by individual member states and the EU's institutions over the past year - enough to give any university student embarking on a study of the EU reform negotiations a flying start.

There is, however, is an enormous difference in the degree to which individual Commission directorates-general use the Internet to spread the word about the work they are doing.

But while many do not use it at all (more than half of all the directorates-general are not online), others provide a raft of detailed information for anyone interested in their activities.

For example, DGXI, the Directorate-General for the environment, provides online access to information about how non-governmental organisations should go about seeking money from EU coffers to fund environmental activities; Science, Research and Development Commissioner Edith Cresson's department (DGXII) provides detailed information about the EU's research programmes; and DGIII (industry) makes extensive use of the Internet - appropriately enough, perhaps, as it is the department responsible for the information society.

So who wants to read about the activities of a particular directorate-general? Plenty of people, it seems. When European Voice tapped into DGIII's site this week to see what was on offer, it became the 81,757th Internet user to do so in just three months. Once there, we found the full programme of the forthcoming City Information Highways workshop later this month (offering users who want to take part the chance to register online).

But while the Commission dominates the EU's home page, other Union institutions have yet to take up the opportunity to make their presence felt on the Internet.

Information about the European Parliament's activities is patchy. It does not provide basic information such as the names, addresses and phone numbers of its 626 members, but it does offer Internet users the chance to become involved in the fight against EU fraud. Its 'Call for evidence' initiative, launched by the newly-formed committee of inquiry into the Community transit system, invites ordinary men and women to send any information which might be useful to the inquiry to the committee via electronic mail.

The Council of Ministers hardly has a presence at all, although officials say that will change within a matter of months. They are preparing to make all Council conclusions available on the Internet by the summer and are hoping to be able to put out a register of EU documents, in a move designed to make it easier to apply the Council's own rules on access to its documents.

A survey carried out by the Commission earlier this year provides a fascinating insight into the identity of the thousands of people who use the EU's Internet service.

Over a period of ten days in March, the Commission put out an electronic questionnaire to all users - and 1,600 responded.

Over that ten-day period, the EU's home page was visited by people from more than 100 different countries, with the majority coming, not surprisingly, from EU member states.

Most declared themselves satisfied with what they found when they got there, although some of the replies proved just how impossible it is to satisfy everybody.

“Your service looks as if it is addressed to insiders, which may be true, but confirms the main cliché about Europe being an élitist club which normal citizens cannot, and do not, belong to,” wrote one dissatisfied respondent from Germany.

One of the main questions still to be answered by the EU institutions is just who they are trying to reach via the Internet. The survey European feedback found that business professionals were the “least contented” of those who used the service regularly, while academics seemed happier with what was on offer.

The subject which interested most users of the service was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the single currency. But if DGXI gets around to making its report on bathing water quality available, it would probably be a big hit as the summer holidays approach.

Another controversial issue among users is one which bedevils the EU in all its work - that of languages.

The majority of EU information currently on the Internet is in English, prompting complaints from some who argue that more languages should be available. The Commission is now working on re-designing the service to make more information available in all 11 official EU languages - a change which should be in place by the summer.

Then, of course, there is the whole question of 'netiquette' (the etiquette which should be followed by everybody present on the Internet). Since the Net was originally designed for communication and dialogue, the netiquette recommends this to all servers. Several respondents to the Commission's survey asked why the EU home page did not provide any opportunity for debates on European matters.

There were also complaints that users of the service are not given an opportunity to ask for more information on particular subjects.

This is naturally a controversial issue, because of fears that if a team of officials was set up to answer questions raised on the Internet, they would rapidly develop into an alternative EU spokesman's service. On the other hand, it is understandable that, for example, an American university student should express frustration that he cannot ask a simple question about a specific subject which interests him.

The European feedback report concludes that it will never be possible to satisfy all users, but, at the same time, highlights the need for more discussion about what information and services should be provided in the future.

The first big changes are expected in June or July, but these are bound to be only a start. More and more people are coming online with every passing month (the number of people in Denmark with access to the service has risen by 75&percent; over the last year alone), so those charged with matching the service on offer to the needs of its users will have to race to keep up.

The EU server can be visited on http://www.cec.lu