No ‘quick fix’ for EU image problem

By Teresa Küchler

Date: 30/06/05

HOW long should an EU communication campaign last and how much could it cost? It should start now, last forever and it could cost something like 15% of the Union's budget, communication experts said at a conference organised by European Voice on 28 June.

Experts and representatives of EU institutions agreed that there was no 'quick fix' to the Union's image-problem and to citizens' lack of interest and trust in the EU.

For Margot Wallström, vice-president of the European Commission, making the European Union more democratic and communicating better with citizens is "mission irresistible", and not "mission impossible".

The commissioner in charge of communications said that it was "time for a pause and for a new approach to the future of Europe", for a "Plan D, where D stands for dialogue, debate and democracy".

The commissioner warned that the European Union would be called into question if it did not deal with important problems such as unemployment, poverty and organized crime.

She said that a White Paper on communication, to be published later this year, should acknowledge that communication is a two-way dialogue and that "the Commission has to listen to people seriously and attentively". It should make better use of opinion polls, focus groups and citizens' panels to find out about the people's concerns, and it should use the internet and local media to address people through their favourite channels.

But Wallström pointed out that communication could only be as good as the policies it wanted to communicate and that it could not be "a substitute for policy failures".

Speakers at the conference insisted on the importance of education in increasing awareness and suggested information about the EU should be integrated in school curricula.

Article reports on a conference organised by European Voice on 28 June 2005 on the future of the EU's communication policy.