Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-16-Speech-4-034"
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"en.20061116.3.4-034"2
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"Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Herrero-Tejedor, for his hard work, the positive tone of this report and the support it gives to the Commission’s ideas. However, I must say that I hope his friend is a better journalist than he is an expert on the EU institutions.
Another central theme of the White Paper is understanding public opinion. Our societies are experiencing unprecedented changes due to higher internal mobility, migration and globalisation. Public opinion has become more and more complex to define and comprehend. Over the last 30 years, the Eurobarometer has been a very useful tool for measuring public opinion, perceptions and orientations. However, we feel that much more can be done. I take note of your hesitations as regards our proposal for an observatory for European public opinion, but we can adopt a more pragmatic approach or step-by-step approach to this matter. For example, the idea of setting up networks of experts to exchange best practices and exploit synergies received considerable support during the public consultation.
I shall not touch upon the many other issues that you rightly address in your comprehensive report, such as the role of Member States, the importance of the regional and local level, the involvement of national parliaments or the responsibilities of political parties, which are all crucial, of course. We fundamentally agree on those issues, and I am very glad that the scope of my mandate allows me to work out concrete proposals to help realise these common aspirations.
Your report is a milestone in the process we have started with the White Paper. It contains strong encouragement to move forward on the basis of ever-closer cooperation between our two institutions. The Commission will issue its final report on the White Paper next spring. That report will set out a series of concrete proposals, to be followed up by operational plans of action. The way ahead is still long and far from easy, but I am confident that, with your support, we can make a real change in the way Europe communicates with its citizens by giving them a real say and by listening to them. An EU communication policy can be a tool to strengthen democracy and I look forward to the debate on it.
When the Commission adopted the White Paper back in February we said that we intended to open a new chapter as regards communication between the European Union and its citizens. As we put it, the new communication policy should move from monologue to dialogue. It should put ears on the European Union. It should move from institution-centred communication to a citizen-centred approach based on people’s fundamental right to information and to be heard. It should move from Brussels-based communication to a decentralised approach and from an accessory tool to a real European policy on an equal footing with other EU policies. In other words, it should be a policy in its own right.
This leads me directly to the issue of the legal basis for the communication policy, which is, I agree, an issue here, and a very difficult and controversial one at that. It is a means of giving legitimacy to what we do and creating commitment, and it would set out the principles by which we worked on communication.
The Commission has proposed a citizens charter, or a code of conduct as we have called it, to which the institutional actors, including Member States, could subscribe on a voluntary basis.
The report suggests a somewhat different approach, inviting the Commission to work on a draft interinstitutional agreement. It also urges the Commission to explore the possibility of launching a genuine Community programme for information and communication on Europe on the basis of Article 308 of the EC Treaty.
The Commission is willing, as you recommend, to explore all possibilities for finding a sound basis for joint action, ranging from a citizens charter to a formal legal base. I am more than happy to embrace those ideas, again in order to give legitimacy to what we do.
I am glad to see that your report acknowledges the importance of civic education and citizens’ involvement in the decision-making process. It calls on the Commission to ensure consultation with the public at an early stage of policy-shaping, and this view is also shared by a broad cross-section of civil society. We shall certainly take action in this regard.
We are all more than aware of the crucial role that the media – press, television, radio and the internet – play in contemporary democracy. We all know that a large part of the communication gap has to do with the fact that European affairs are quite marginal and often misrepresented in the media.
I would like to be clear on this issue, because you have asked the Commission to define with the greatest precision what role it would like to assign to the media. However, the problem cannot be addressed from that angle. The only role the media can have is the one that our democratic tradition has entrusted them with, which is to inform citizens in an independent, pluralistic and critical manner on European issues in the same way as domestic issues. The problem is how to create the conditions for this to happen, and this will be the theme of a stakeholders’ conference that will take place in Helsinki in December, as a follow-up to the White Paper."@en1
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