Magazine

Bridging the gap

Despite a general understanding of the reasons behind the malaise and inaction of the European electorate, the Members of the European Parliament continue to struggle to generate interest in the process of European integration. The next European Parliamentary elections will be held in 2009 – which means the MEPs have until then to explore the existing paradox: although the European Parliament’s powers are increasing, its public support is in decline.

The Reform Treaty would strengthen the political role of the EP, giving it co-decision power over the majority of Community legislation. This would put greater weight on the role of EU citizens, given that the EP is the sole directly-elected governing body. Still, though, the public lacks awareness about EP activities. It’s clear that the EP’s relationship with its electorate is severely problematic: In the majority of member states the voter turnout in EP elections is between 20 to 40 percent lower than the turnout in national elections.

So, on 27 November, the European Action Citizen Service, ECAS – an independent non-profit based in Brussels – held a public forum to bring together MEPs with a cross-section of civil society. The daylong event triggered an interesting exchange of ideas on how to motivate Europeans to vote and participate in the upcoming elections. It also showed how further campaigns and civil action of NGOs like ECAS can pique the interest of the electorate by channelling the debate between the EP and the general population.

Background

Fifty years from the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the original aim of a peaceful, stable and prosperous European unification has been widely achieved. But with the enlargements since 1957, the EU has not only become larger and more diverse but also faced with increasingly complex issues and challenges. These have to be communicated to its citizens, not an easy task.

For some time, the European Union has been confronted with the rising phenomenon of EU skepticism. The institutions, particularly the European Parliament, are faced with high rates of voting abstentions and no votes, especially by the younger generation. The 2005 “no” votes against the draft EU constitution in France and the Netherlands descended the EU into the deepest crisis of its 50 year history. Numerous opinion polls show that Europeans feel an increasing lack of trust in the European construction. The information being disseminated by the EU is seen as disorganised, incoherent and difficult to understand. What follows is a rather scarce knowledge about the functioning of the EU institutions and their policies.

In order to stimulate the support for the European Union in this difficult climate, the debate must be taken beyond the institutions to its citizens. The European Parliament is the only directly elected EU body, and as such considers itself to be, “best qualified to take up the challenge of keeping open the channels of communication with EU citizens.”

Realizing the gap

The low voter turnout in 2004 brought the problem to the forefront, prompting the EU to realize it needs a better communication strategy. The widely held consensus on the low voter participation in the last parliamentary elections was that the low voter turnout was not the result of a general morosity with the whole EU construct but rather the weak communication policy of the European Union.

Afterward, demands for a better EU communication plan emerged. It will be necessary in order to mobilise the participation in 2009 elections. In the case of the EP, people need to be informed about how it functions and its main priorities.

Participants at the ECAS debate called for factual, apolitical and timely information as key to participation was argued as the basic instrument enabling to bridge the gap between the European institutions and the citizens.

Some changes to the election campaign communication strategy were also proposed: cover concrete issues; communicate it to chosen target groups and increase the European conflict. Spice up the campaign and make it more competitive. Not to vote, but to vote about something.


Professor Richard Sinnott of the University College Dublin (left), stated that one way to mobilise people to vote is by presenting them with meaningful choices between parties and candidates and by appealing to their partisan and candidate preferences. However, Andrew Duff, MEP of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, noted that there are no real party leaders emerging, no prominent political personalities in sight who would strive for a high EU position and be willing to take up the elections campaign.

Julian Oliver, Secretary General of Foundation EurActiv (right), called for a “Three Bs” approach for the upcoming election campaign: “Be realistic, be ambitious and be more active.”

The general population should not be expected to fall in love with the EU, nor to automatically identify itself as European. The process of peoples’ participation in the EU project has to evolve organically. The institutions can contribute to bridging the democratic deficit by more actively addressing issues which directly affect the daily lives of Europeans.

Many debates have shown that Europeans are mostly concerned with the social dimension of the EU in the context of globalisation, in particular jobs and the fear of unemployment as well as issues concerning security, aging population, immigration policy and health policy. There is also a noticeable desire for more proactiveness on the European level in the area of the environmental protection.

Reaching the people

Going local was at the ECAS debate seen as another communication strategy to be applied during the upcoming EP election season.

Candidates should tailor messages to different audiences, countries and sectors. They should carefully investigate which target groups they wish to reach and, preferably, send out messages towards common interest groups, such as students, academics, journalists and trade unionists.

To be able to evoke participation in the early stage of the campaign, the EP must be more interactive and better respond to the challenges related to the new media technologies, which nowadays enable a more affordable and quicker mass communication. Prof. Sinnott stated that whilst the prevailing sources of information (i.e., TV, daily newspapers and radio) have a wider reach, they have less capacity to influence electoral behaviour than the more specialised channels of communication, like discussions, magazines and Internet.

Table 1: EU-related communication channels

Channels of information	Net propensity to vote	Percent of the electorate
TV	+1.4	66.5
Daily newspapers	+4.2	46.0
Radio	+2.8	34.2
Discussions with others	+9.6	21.7
Magazines, etc.	+10.9	20.9
Internet	+8.5	14.7

_{Source: R. Sinnott / P. Lyons: A report Prepared for the European Parliament Task Force On voter Participation in the EP election of 2004; University College Dublin, Ireland; April 2003}

Internet is seen as the leading medium enabling a cross-border debate and the possibility of receiving feedback from users. Thus, the EU institutions should make better use of the Web 2.0 tools - blogs, wikis and RSS - as they encourage an interactive dialogue between people on key political issues. Oliver finds that, “blogs express frank opinions from people and facts that journalists wouldn’t necessarily have picked up.” In this way, “blogs give us an extra source of intelligence.”

Alexandre Heuilly, director of communications and co-founder of Café Babel, observed: “The Internet is gaining much more power in terms of touching people not only because we can inform them, but also because we can ask people to participate in this process of information.”

Heuilly (right) further elaborated that many studies of the 2005 French referendum on the draft EU Constitution proved that during the referendum campaign, the blogosphere was widely read and actually drove the general opinion towards the NO. People turned to the new communication channels because they were looking for different sort of information which they were not able to find in the traditional media. This proved blogs to be increasingly important in shaping the public opinion and Heuilly suggested the EU should in the future pay more attention to the web.

Nonprofit sector

Another issue addressed was that of the role of the organised civil society in the process of mobilizing the electorate. Gerard Onesta, Vice President of the EP, referred to CSOs as the - until now - missing link between the European institutions and the people.

Their role is not only participatory but rather legitimising.

Jens N. Christensen, Secretariat General of European Commission, said the role of CSOs is to help the EP at creating EU debates throughout all 27 member states, thereby encouraging participatory democracy. The European elections are therefore an opportunity for civil society to be heard. It can draw up manifestos, send questionnaires to candidates, intervene in the media or organise debates.

Bridging the gap

A claim often heard in the EP 2004 election follow-up was that during the pre-election period, the politicians mostly focused on one rather distinct issue: the possible entry of Turkey into the EU. Since the general public is more concerned with everyday issues like jobs and health, it didn’t really feel motivated to vote. The popular trick of using propaganda to get votes did not work.

Instead it became clearer than ever: People are having difficulty understanding what the EU really is, does or how it affects everyday lives. What the people expect from their politicians, both national and European, is for them to work harder on resolving the complicated problems that actually matter to citizens - and, at the same time, better communicate these.

In the aftermath of the 2004 EP election disaster, Araceli from France commented:

“I think that the drop in the turnout for the EP elections wasn’t surprising. Everybody knew that with such a dull preparation (in France and Spain, we barely got to see any candidates and from what I’ve heard, it was the same everywhere) many people weren’t going to vote. I really believe that the media should talk about the European Parliament more during the rest of the time, it’s normal that most people don’t know anything about it if they’re never told anything! Especially as many politicians treat it as a place to wait until they get a better job in their country… ”

So, in order to bridge the distance of the EP from its electorate in the upcoming 2009 elections, the election campaign must be aimed at a more coherent and integrated communication, providing clear and sufficient information and engaging citizens in debates and discussions on national, regional and local levels.

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