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"Localised, vernacular summaries of the EU's day-to-day business, along with explanations of why the measures are needed, are already being provided and will be improved, she said."

 

EU officials go 'back to school' to better inform citizens on issues

TIM O'BRIEN in Strasbourg

EU : EUROPEAN UNION and member state officials are to go "back to school" as part of moves to better communicate the day-to-day business of the union.

Under a declaration signed by communications commissioner Margot Wallström yesterday national Governments and the EU institutions will set up "management partnerships" to counter the kind of arguments which the commission believes led to the downfall of the Lisbon Treaty in the Irish referendum.

Speaking in Strasbourg yesterday Ms Wallström told The Irish Times the measure went beyond simply providing information to EU citizens, but would create a "citizen's right" to know how decisions were arrived at and what the background arguments were.

To facilitate this, she said officials from member states and the EU were "going back to school" to learn how to communicate the European ideals in the words and style that people can understand.

Localised, vernacular summaries of the EU's day-to-day business, along with explanations of why the measures are needed, are already being provided and will be improved, she said. Germany, Hungary and Slovenia had already set up a management partnerships and a further eight, including Ireland, were in the pipeline.

Referring specifically to the Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty she said the problem had "not been one of getting the information out there, but there being too much information, disinformation." She said many of the arguments put forward had been emotional ones to which the pro-Lisbon side "never had a counter argument".

She said the question of the treaty was a particularly good example of the communications issue as "we have to ask ourselves what we want for the future of the union and where we are going and then we must express that so that people know what is planned. Not everybody is going to read a 400-page legal document".

Mrs Wallström, who is scheduled to visit Dublin next month for meetings with the Government, said the expectation was that Ireland would be able to propose a solution to the problems of ratification of the treaty by the end of this year.

© 2008 The Irish Times

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