By Elinor Blair - 19th October 2004
A new report on the EU’s publicity strategy finds that Europe is not complicated, just badly communicated.
The survey, published by think tank ‘Friends of Europe’, has sent key findings into an open letter to commissioner designate for communications strategy, Margot Wallström.
Urging the Swede to make an effort to “adapt your message to your audience” and not to “turn people off with too much detail” the report goes into depth on how to improve communications with European citizens.
The EU’s policy of “giving out information rather than engaging in dialogue” is roundly criticised.
And future commissioners are urged to spend more time in their own countries to publicise the EU.
Amongst critics of the EU’s communications strategy, former prime minister of Italy Giuliano Amato comments: “an institution that is only perceived as the regulator of the size of apples cannot raise any sort of emotional attention.”
Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde joins the debate saying the commission produces “pure propaganda. The commission takes all the news and manipulates it to fit its own priorities.”
Most of the report’s interviewees said that the creation of a commission portfolio on information and communication was a bad idea.
Some suggestions that fell to the wayside were a plan to produce a TV soap opera about life in Brussels ‘Euroland’ and to promote Latin as the official EU language.
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