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CHAPTER FIVE
Understanding the EUs institutional communication.
Principles and structure of a contested policy

Cristiano Bee
Introduction
This paper aims to increase understanding of the system of institutional
communication developed by the European Union, and in particular the European
Commission. As such, it sits within a body of work recently produced by different
European scholars (Bee 2008, Brggemann 2005, Foret 2008, Golding 2007, Meyer
1999, Sarikaris 2005, Statham 2008), focusing on the development of complex
communicative practices between the EUs institutional realm and different social actors
(such as the media, journalists and civil society organisations). Attention to this area of
policy has increased somewhat in recent years, partly because of a growing interest in
both the public sphere debate and the related, but broader, question of the EUs
democratisation process. The prominence that the European Commission has given to
the development of a communication strategy, in order to increase awareness of the
European Integration project (CEC 2001a, 2005a, 2006c, 2008a, 2008b), has also been
influential, particularly since the beginning of the new millenium, as, in order to
improve its image, both globally and within the enlarged community, the European
Commission has been trying to develop its own means of

communication both

internally and externally.

However, the development of communication policy has been a long process,
and it has to be considered within a broader context, including policies in the cultural

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and educational fields. Although the first concrete attempts to develop a communication
strategy were made soon after the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the process really
got started in the eighties, when the EU began to promote itself by developing a set of
policies for a Citizens Europe. The social imaginary of Europe was to be created
through the development of a symbolic reality. The Adonnino Report in 1985 is the
starting point (CEC 1985); on its recommendation a wide variety of instruments was
created to enable the forging of an imagined Europe and the development of a
perception of a homogenous European public space (Shore 2000, Sassatelli 2002).
Following this, at the beginning of the nineties, the field of information and
communication was established by the European Commission for Europe-building
purposes (Shore 2000: 54). However, the Treaty of Maastricht had not considered the
implementation of policies in this area, and so began a discussion on the need to
improve the communication flow about European matters.
In 1993 Willy DeClercq a member of the European Parliament at the timewas appointed by the European Commission to lead a working group that would draft a
report on the creation of an information and communication policy (CEC 1993). At the
same time, through the Oostlander Report adopted by the European Parliament, the
necessity for better cooperation in this sector was strongly affirmed (EP 1993). These
documents formed the basis of Pinheiros 1994 report Information, communication and
openness (CEC 1994).
Within these documents, information and communication are seen as tools to
strengthen the link between institutions and citizens and to persuade the general public
of the value of the European project. The DeClerq report, for example, was severely
criticised because of its strong emphasis on the need to obtain consensus on the

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European project, by overcoming mistrust and ignorance and the EUs lack of visibility.
These were considered the reasons for the French near-rejection of the Maastricht
Treaty in their 1992 referendum. In his report, DeClerq stated that the construction of
Europe is not being communicated in a relevant and persuasive way to the citizens of
Europe. Consequently, we are running the risk that the public concludes that the
construction itself is not being carried out. After years of mounting anticipation, 1992
passed by in enigmatic silence (CEC 1993: 3).
So, the first concrete communication campaigns were implemented by the
European Commission in the 1990s, as part of the Prince action plan and then
throughout the Euro campaign. The latter was probably the first mass attempt to
communicate facts about Europe to the general public (Caligiuri 1998). It offered
European Institutions the opportunity to define both the actors and their objectives
clearly, thus improving internal and external communication structures.
More recently, information and communication have become priorities for the
European Commission, who have focused on improving structures, increasing resources
and developing routines for better and fuller communication with the citizens of Europe.
In some ways the governance reform of 2001 and the subsequent period of reflection
that began in 2005 led the European Commission to move beyond the Euro
campaigning styles, by developing the use of dialogic and interactive instruments in its
communication policy.
It is not by chance that in the 2001 White Paper on Governance, information
and communication were considered key tools for creating an effective bond with the
citizens of Europe (CEC 2001a: 11). The approach taken since then has thus been that of
involving a wide set of local authorities, environments and actors. However, the public

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sphere development, central to the proposed governance reform, has been strongly
criticized by a number of European scholars. The role to be assumed by communication
under the new policy came under particular attack. For example Eriksen commented
that by focusing on apathy and ignorance one not only puts the blame on the people,
but reduces the problem to an information problem it is about lack of knowledge. This
represents a rather superficial understanding of the causes for distrust, and one that is at
odds with the post Nice debate (Eriksen 2001: 2). Even though in general scholars
remained sceptical, between 2001 and 2004 three documents that dealt with the
development of this policy were published by the European Commission; a sign of the
high level of interest in creating a precise architecture for it (CEC 2001b, 2002b,
2004a). These documents were intended to prepare the ground for the implementation
of this new policy; identifying actors, prioritising certain themes, and clearly defining
means for communicating with the general public.
More recently, the publication of the Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and
Debate (CEC 2005d) and the White Paper on a European Communication Policy (CEC
2006c) show a renewed attempt to develop a two-way model of institutional
communication in the EU, structurally different from the top-down model of the
nineties Euro campaign. This paper provides some insights into the present context,
characterizing the evolution of communication policy in recent years.
My argument is that in recent years the EU has tried to develop its own
institutional communication policy, adopting well defined principles in order to
communicate with different social actors and involve them in interactions with the
institutions themselves. The EU has assumed principles that typically characterize the
management of public relations campaigns. In the following sections I outline the

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background to this paper, defining what I mean by institutional communication and

looking at some of the EUs most recent campaigns. I then draw some distinctions
between one-way and two-way models of institutional communication. Finally, I make
some criticisms and observations, based on research I have just done on the
development of the EUs institutional communication in Italy and in Brussels.1
Institutional communication: definition and principles
I consider institutional communication to be the set of activities organised by
public institutions to address questions of public concern.

It necessitates: 1) an

awareness (on the part of the institutions) of what needs to be communicated 2) the
possibility (for the citizens) to interact with policy makers 3) continuous feedback on
the activities of public bodies 4) the possibility to influence and change institutional
activities through feedback.
Of course these factors are closely interlinked: the basic assumption is that to
be fully democratic a political system must find its own ways to develop accessible
communication tools, enabling citizens to exchange ideas on questions of public
concern.
Two basic principles need to be considered by institutions wishing to develop a
workable relationship with a citizenry: trustworthiness and accountability. Both are
necessary to improve an institutions image. Thus, for an institution, developing a good

I will particularly refer to data I collected through indepth interviews conducted with representatives of

Europe Direct and functionaries of European Institutions (Commissioners and MEPs) in the frame of the
MIUR 2006 project The Uncertainity of Europe. In order to give some examples of different models of
institutional communication I will also refer to some cases taken from field work on Healthy lifestyles
promotion in European Cities that I conducted in 2007/2008, sponsored by the Autonomous Province of
Trento (Italy).

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reputation basically means being trustworthy and accountable and capable of fulfilling
its promises, through the implementation of public policy. Trust between institutions
and citizens is obviously essential, since the latter need to be sure that the former are
reliable and able to manage resources and answer specific questions.
Citizens should be able to express opinions about public activities and
articulate a common will through deliberative processes, thus influencing the public
agenda. Interest in institutional communication has recently grown in Europe (Van
Ruler and Vercic 2004), especially since institutions started to stress the importance of
involving public relations organisations in order to increase and improve dialogue with
the general public (Mancini 2003). This challenged the typical structures of public
administration, which had to reorganise their practices in order to improve their
communication methods. Professionalism is essential in this context, and
administrators have started to specialise in certain areas, so that they can communicate
internally, with other sections of the EU infrastructure and also externally, with the
general public, through different modalities and styles of campaigning. This has meant
the development of specialised professionals, able to deal with the complexities of
communication management and to plan specific strategies in collaboration with the
various social actors involved in public policy development.
A specific focus of institutional communication is the development of a
feedback mechanism, which makes exchanges between citizens and institutions
possible. Through the feedback mechanism institutions gain an insight into the
opinions and beliefs of the general public and can form an idea of the common will in
relation to public proceedings and specific policy developments. For example, feedback
is an important aspect of urban planning management in a number of European cities,

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where public administrations use it to prioritize issues when deciding public policy. In
the city of Turku (Finland), citizenship evenings are a common practice, and in 2009 I
went there as a participatory observer to study institutional communication on healthy
lifestyles and sustainable mobility (Bee and Gadotti 2009). In Turku, administrators
have open meetings with citizens and through these discussions they engage in
deliberative routines in order to get feedback and plan activities 2. The process of public
planning and subsequent policy implementations then followed up by the so called
measurement of customer satisfaction: the collection of data through qualitative or
quantitative methodologies in order to understand whether interventions have met with
approval. This has become common practice in a number of public institutions
throughout Europe, having developed during the restructuring of public administrations
over the last few decades. Central to this is the idea of the citizen as the principal
customer of the institutional realm: communicating by focusing on the specific needs
of the target audience therefore becomes one of the main services a public
administration performs. The development of institutional communication translates
into practice ideas of citizens rights to participate in, and strengthen the foundation of
participatory democracy within a political community. In this context the fundamental
distinction between information and communication must be drawn; the former
connoting passivity and allowing citizens to get to know about what is public, and the
latter being an active process which enables citizens to have a say about what is
public. Working with this distinction, in the next sections I go on to contrast one-way
(informative) and two-way (communicative) models of public relations.
One-way communication: from propaganda to public information
2

For an overview of initiatives developed in Turku under the Who Healthy Cities programme visit
http://www.turku.fi/public/

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Communication management involves the planning of specific public relations

organisation finalised at developing interactivity and exchange of knowledge between
institutions and the various social actors present on a given territory. In their classic
work, Managing Public Relations, Grunig and Hunt (1984) explained the differences
between various models of communication and influenced much of the thinking in this
field.3
'One-way public relations models' represent a relationship in which the
communication flow goes from the sender (institutions) to the receiver (citizens),
entailing the passivity of the latter in a top-down structure. Usually organisations
develop communication strategies to produce awareness of particular issues and to
obtain consensus. There is no feedback mechanism in this case, since there is no space
for criticism from the general public. This is the format usually used in marketing
campaigns, and often also employed by institutions when they need to promote policies
without open discussion. The use of one-way communication methods ranges from
publicity and propaganda to public information, typically used in journalism. As Fawkes
said (2004: 13), public information is used by institutions whenever they communicate
through for example press releases about their activities, and has recently been further
developed , in order to facilitate transparency, one of the prerequisites for modern
democracy. In the case of the EU, one-way communication could be said to have
characterized the Euro campaign in the nineties. Institutions emphasized winning the
acceptance of the process of transformation by the general public, and left little space
for questioning the wisdom of this transition and basically required the passivity of the
public. One-way communication in this case was almost propaganda; the vertical flow
3

See also Dozier, Grunig and Grunig (2001) and Grunig and Grunig (1992). For a discussion of models

see Fawkes and Moloney 2008, Karlberg (1996)

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of information

from

European institutions to member states, thence to local

governments and, finally, the public. Principles of subsidiarity were followed in the
deciding of priorities: general themes were established by the European Commission
under the Prince programme, and national governments were responsible for organising
public campaigns appropriate to their specific audiences and targets.
At the same time however, one-way communication can be considered a
constitutive part of evolving EU information strategies. The development of the Europa
website, for example, follows the public information format, with the supranational
institutions guaranteeing access to public documents, working papers, reports in fact,
to all the most up to date material on the development of EU policy. The importance of
the portals function as a disseminator of information should not be underestimated. The
Europa website represents a massive experiment which has evolved over the years,
allowing those in need of specific information to access it; it was conceived and
developed to provide the prerequisites of transparency and openness.
Two-way communication: asymmetrical and symmetrical models
Two-way public relations models were divided by Grunig and Hunt (1984)
according to the role played by the public in relation to public institutions. Whenever
institutions try to effect a change in public behaviour on a particular issue the
communication flow can be considered asymmetric or imbalanced: the flow moves
from sender to receiver and then back to sender (through the collection of relevant data
on citizens attitudes, criticisms and concerns). Stakeholders and civil society
organisations can have a say in shaping the institutional agenda and they lobby to gain
a voice in the public arena. This sort of public campaigning involves a wide variety of
instruments (face-to-face relationships, development of on-line communication,

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workshop organisation, and so on) which are based on the interactive idea that
proximity is needed for bidirectionality between sender and receiver.
In recent years campaigning has thus become more complex and improving
participation in public life has thus become one of the tasks of institutions. Health
promotion campaigns, those against alcohol for example, have traditionally tried to
persuade people to change their behaviour in order to achieve both personal and
collective benefits. There are a number of recent examples of health promotion
campaigns that refer to face-to-face activities in order to promote a collective idea of
healthy living (Bee and Gadotti 2009). Integrated projects developed by some European
municipalities to promote alternative mobility are hoping to forge a shared
commitment between institutions and the social actors of their community. The
municipality of Odense (DK), has been promoting cycling as an alternative to using the
car, and has involved civil society, media, voluntary organisations and the private sector
in developing the communitarian idea of a healthy and sustainable city.4 The numerous
communication strategies the city administration has developed over the years have
involved various instruments. People have been able to take part in the management of
the communication itself (ranging from public meetings in the city squares to social
events encouraging people to develop the habit of cycling together). These public
initiatives have resulted in the development of a mutual social imaginary shaping the
collective identity of the city itself, and institutional communication has been based on
asymmetrical public relations management.
Other EU campaigns follow this PR style of institutional communication,
which is one of the main modalities used in the recent campaign Help-for a life without

See http://www.cykelby.dk/eng/index.asp for more information about projects implemented in Odense

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tobacco, which has used a wide variety of methods to persuade people to quit
smoking.5 It was conceived in collaboration with civil society organisations, particularly
the European Youth Forum, who worked with the DG Sanco to agree common messages
and develop the actual campaign.
The advocacy and lobbying of NGOs in Brussels through institutionalised
instruments, like the Civil Dialogue procedures, is a good example of the development
of structured dialogue between institutions and civil society organisations. Over time the
Civil Dialogue has become an institutionalised form of interaction between NGOs and
European Institutions, and can be considered a fundamental tool for strengthening
participatory democracy at the EU level. However, this instrument has a functional
dimension, since it is closely linked to the advocacy and lobby routines NGOs are
committed to as part of their activities. It is important to note that the Civil Dialogue has
been fundamental to the processes of change, through its influence on policy making,
and in realising a shared responsibility for decision making on political priorities.
However, the various NGOs

have differing abilities to influence

policy making,

depending on their position within both horizontal power nexuses (between the different
organisations, networks and platforms in Brussels) and the vertical ones (between
actors in Brussels and those at the subnational and national levels). The strengthening
of mechanisms that increase interaction between institutions and civil society entails
both the building of new capacities and a new professionalism within the organisations
involved. There is an ever growing number of public relations managers, policy officers,
fundraisers and so on, whose job it is to communicate both within the institutional realm
and with representatives of networks and organisations in order to increase the level of
representation of Brussels-based organisations. In principle, these mechanisms tend to
5

The official website of the campaign is http://www.help-eu.com/

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develop asymmetrical relations between institutional and non-institutional actors at the

EU level.
On the other hand, symmetrical communication is enhanced by public
institutions developing structures that facilitate a direct, dialogic, interactive and critical
relationship with the public in order to develop a common attitude to a particular issue.
Negotiators, able to mediate between the various interests of both institutions and
citizens, have been employed in order to strengthen symmetrical models of institutional
communication. This kind of PR activity is symmetrical in that it describes a level of
equality of communication where each party is willing to alter their behaviour to
accommodate the needs of the other (Fawkes 2004: 15). It is based on principles of
open dialogue leading to an exchange of views and mutual understanding between
actors, instead of being a monologue, as in other models.
Examples of this model of institutional communication can be found in different urban
contexts around Europe and typically involve the establishment of Public Relations
Offices through which institutions strengthen dialogue with the active citizenry, which
becomes capable of deliberating on and influencing policy making. The basic function
these offices should perform is that of a bridge between citizens and institutions. I
discovered a very well developed structure of symmetrical communication in the
Healthy City Shop in Horsens, Denmark (Bee and Gadotti 2009). This public entity was
developed under the WHOs Healthy Cities programme and it is committed to listening
to voluntary organisations concerns and project proposals in the fields of

health

promotion and healthy living. The Shop is a structure in the centre of Horsens, visible to
all and accessible to anyone with an interest in the health field. Its role is to provide
information, through the production of bulletins, newsletters, thematic leaflets and so

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on, which are available at the shops desk and online. The HCS also aids
communication, since its everyday routines are based on principles of citizenship
empowerment: listening to peoples concerns and enabling voluntary associations to
plan activities in collaboration with public administration experts.
It is important to understand whether or not this model could be traslated to the
EU level. I think that the development of the Europe Direct relays is moving in this
direction, in so far as they are directly involved in the process of communicating about
EU issues. Europe Direct is a network developed in 2005 following a call by the
European Commission for a proposal to reorganize the old system of relays run by Info
Point Europe (IPE) and Carrefours. These two, since the end of the 1980s and 2004
respectively, have been the main actors at the local level. IPEs usually organised
activities targeting the general public, whereas Carrefours generally focused on more
specific targets, such as rural or agricultural groups.
It is not by chance that the initial idea to develop the EUs information centres
was formed in the eighties, at the same time as the development of the Citizens
Europe policies. The number of initiatives begun in the second half of the 1980s by the
European Community to raise awareness of the European project is quite impressive:
European awards, sports competitions, the formation of a European orchestra, the
implementation of the Jean Monnet Programme and other exchange programmes such
as Erasmus, Europe-wide celebrations like the 9th of May (date of the Schuman
Declaration Celebration), projects to define Europe as a new cultural space such as the
European City of Culture (Booth and Boyle, 1993, Hitters, 2000) and so on. The
European space was thus to be conceived as a culturally and educationally mediated
symbolic entity. Information relays were intended to help develop a social imaginary of

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the European public space.

The decision to re-organise the Information relays was taken in 2003, in order
to consolidate the idea of decentralisation and to develop better communication
management. A prominent new role has been assumed by the Representatives of the
European Commission, who are responsible for coordinating the networks activities. In
the past, both IPE and Carrefours had a direct and often inefficient relationship with the
DG Press and Communication. As I have discovered from interviews conducted over
the last few years, in some cases there were no rules for organising information in
Member States and the relays used to coordinate themselves. 6 The creation of the new
Europe Direct structure -with a new formal role given to the Representatives of the
Commission - is meant to develop better coordination between the different relays. The
Representatives have been responsible for implementing Plan D at the territorial level
and for establishing guidelines and principles on which the different activities should be
based.
Europe Direct relays have two main functions. First, an informative function,
meaning that they have to provide information on different European issues when
requested by the public to do so. This is usually done in so called front-offices, but
also through the new technologies (mainly web sites and electronic newsletter). Their
second important and more interesting role, is to develop the so called
communicative function. One of their tasks is to organize field events and interactive
or didactic activities with the public; and particularly with specific publics (mainly
students at different stages of their education). This means that a very important
educational role is played by the European relays. One of the aims of these activities is
6

In Italy, for example, IPEs have long been coordinated by the Turin relay which was informally

responsible for giving minimum standards to the entire network

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the development of an awareness of the European Integration process, focusing on the

different historical events that have characterised it, on the leading political figures and
the great debates going on in the EU (such as that on enlargement).
As public relations organisations, Europe Directs play the important role of
mediators between the European Commission and the public; they have been designed
to close the gap between European institutions and social actors at subnational levels.
What they can achieve day to day is limited, however, because they lack concrete
opportunities to have a real impact by providing communicability through their
campaigning on European issues, both because of a lack of resources and of
opportunities to concentrate the general publics attention on EU issues. Reducing the
complexity of the different aspects of EU integration into communicable messages is in
fact one of the most problematic issues and one of the biggest challenges in the
everyday activities involving face-to-face work with the public. This results, I think, in
a situation in which the Europe Direct relays have the potential to serve the
development of a symmetrical structure of institutional communication and enable the
establishment of a two-way communication flow allowing for mutual and shared
benefits. The problem is that they lack the opportunities and resources to fulfil their
potential.
Referring to a set of interviews with Europe Direct representatives and EU
functionaries conducted face-to-face between 2006 and 2008, in the following section I
suggest some reasons for the EU's continued institutional communication weakness,
and some possible improvements.
From principles to practice: questioning the EUs institutional
communication reform

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The two flows of communication structure was one of the main innovations
Wallstrm announced when the process of the EUs redefinition of communication
started in 2005. However, the adoption of an effective and substantial communication
policy is still far from being realised. In this section I underline three aspects to which
EU institutions should pay more attention in order to improve their institutional
communication: the necessity to redefine relationships and interactions between actors,
to better define subjects for communication, and to develop coherent feedback
mechanisms.
By looking at the European Commissions structure it seems that
communication should be improved both internally, between different DGs, and
externally, between the DG Communication and others supranational actors
communicating at the EU level. These include the European Parliament press offices
and the various agencies who refer to Brussels and cooperate, more or less
independently, in framing communication strategies, the Maastricht-based European
Journalism Centre, for example, or the supranational media Euractiv. Supranational
actors of course have the fundamental task of shaping agendas and drafting specific
discourses on the European Integration process. They comprise what Eriksen (2004) has
defined as the strong public sphere: those actors who have a direct and established
relationship with the supranational institutions and are powerful enough to shape policy.
This kind of public sphere is an elite composed of intellectuals, professionals,
functionaries - with a particular interest in European issues.
More challenging, however, is the task of improving the management of
vertical communication: the relationships and interactions between the supranational,
the national, and the local. Social actors at the bottom of the system of European

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governance represent the weak public sphere; they have few opportunities to gain a
voice in the framing of European issues. Civil society actors working at the local level
in member states, for example, need to ask experts working in umbrella organisations
and operating at the supranational level to represent their interests within the EUs
institutional setting, whenever they wish to include a European dimension in their
activities.
Looking more specifically at the European Commission and vertical
coordination, it is worth remembering that since 2004 the Commission Representatives
in the member states have been given greater prominence in the organization of public
communication in these states. They should be able to act as bridges between interests
in the different territorial contexts and translate priorities decided in Brussels into
communicable messages to be transmitted to the general public, through the Europe
Direct networks. However, this process of communication management faces resistance
from national governments, who do not want the Representatives of the Commission to
gain so much influence over the shaping of institutional communication .
In fact, one of the most pressing current difficulties in proposing a coherent
approach to communication is what a number of interviewees described as the
nationalisation of European issues by member states. Indeed, the EUs ability to
communicate depends more on the political will of national governments to facilitate
such communication, than on the European Commissions efforts to promote it. Much
still also depends on the way in which the various national media report EU issues. The
media re-contextualize the politics and themes of the EU through the prism of each
member states political, social and cultural orientation and particular interest in Europe,
questioning the European Commissions attempts to develop a transnational public

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sphere. The lack of a shared commitment and a common strategy between different
institutional and non-institutional actors, both at the supranational and national levels,
seems to be undermining the ability of any EU communication to influence public
opinion.
Representatives of Europe Directs relays recognise this as one of the main
problems with the process attempting to redefine institutional policy. As one of them put
it to me in a recent interview:

There is a problem in the relationship with Brussels. The Plan D and all the different
documents published in these last years address the problem of Communicating Europe, but
the concrete meaning of this is not clear yet. The development of Europe Directs relays is
positive and important for us and has helped us make steady progress in this policy area.
But our problem is that our relationship with the EU just consists of a series of bureaucratic
practices. (Interview n.8 in Italy, Europe Direct)

So, the strategy behind the implementation of the institutional policy is not
generally considered clear or well defined; it lacks a vision of the concrete aims, themes
and priorities that need to be communicated. This can be interpreted as the result of the
European Commissions schizophrenic approach to Communication, to quote one of
Europe Directs representatives, since the crisis of the European Union started with the
failure of the referenda on the Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands in
2005 and then flared up again when the Irish rejected the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. The
term schizophrenia refers to the use of institutional communication as a tool to solve
the EUs democratic deficit and to obtain consensus on European Policy making. It also
expresses a clear opinion about the situation subsequent to the failure of the

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Constitutional Treaty, when the European Commission emphasized the importance of

communication, but without backing this up with a clear, strategic, long-term plan.
As a representative of the European Commission explained during an interview
in Brussels, these two referenda failures were a rude awakening for supporters of the
European project. The following quotation reveals the sense of confusion soon after the
Constitutional Treaty Nos, and the subsequent decision to develop the Plan D:

It does not really matter what people say because everyone is convinced that the
Commission, the Brussels guysalways have a Plan B but I can tell you that this was
not the case, there was no Plan B but there was a need for a Plan D. The referenda results
showed that there was a big gap between the political elites and their own citizens, so it
was time for democracy, dialogue and debate. (interview n. 2 in Brussels, European
Commission)

The big gap to fill through the improvement of communication has become a
recurrent and over-used - metaphor for the democratic deficit in many of the
institutional discussions since 2005 on the overall mission of communication policy. A
number of attempts to fill this gap have been initiated: funded projects, festivals and
workshops across the member states, aimed at involving citizens in consultations and
debates on various topics. These range from the role of the European Institutions 7, to
European issues affecting citizens lives8, and they usually seek to encourage discussion

Like the project Wir Sind Europa in Vienna (A), focused on the European Parliament. For further

information: www.wirsindeuropa.at
8

One example is the Festival Debate organised in the Czech Republic, covering different themes like

climate change or intercultural dialogue. For further information: www.agora-ce.cz

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between politicians and target groups.9 Even looking briefly at the various projects
funded by the EU between 2005 and 2008, one must acknowledge the remarkable
attempts made to enhance interactivity with a large set of audiences and targets.
A further criticism must, however, be made. This model is still intended to
benefit the Commission itself, rather than to foster mutual understanding between
institutions and the general public; the agenda chosen for debate is established on the
basis of the EUs political priorities rather than on citizens needs. Many Europe Direct
representatives cite this top-down philosophy that shapes the agenda as one of the
reasons for the continued asymmetry of the EUs institutional communication: its
content is not balanced, and tends towards European Commission priorities.
This tallies with what has been remarked upon by various Civil Society and
media Organisations based in Brussels. In 2006 Euractiv published a Yellow Paper on
EU Communication entitled Euractivs Plan D: Diversify, Decentralise, Disseminate,
Decide (EurActiv 2006). The European Commission held discussions with civil society
actors, media and policy makers between February and September 2006, following the
publication of the White Paper on Communication. Euractivs Plan D is based on
feedback from, and consultations about, these discussions. In it, EurActiv found much
to criticise and made various suggestions for improvement, pointing particularly to the
philosophy behind the definition of this policy area, which still seemed to be too reliant
on abstract principles and lacking a more substantial and well defined architecture. One
basic criticism made in the Yellow Paper was of the White Paper on Communication
itself: the analysis of issues is good, as well as the understanding of opportunities with
9

The project EU citizens on opportunities, challenges and the future of Europe, in Slovenia until summer

2009, aimed to engage citizens in the EU debate through interactive approaches. For further information
www.mojasoseska.si

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civil society and the media. However, it does not constitute a full strategy: principles are
conceptual rather than creating deep change, actions should be more specific, and the
timeline is slow again (Euractiv 2006: 5). The Active Citizenship Network followed the
same line, criticizing the European Commissions strategy for not clarifying precisely
what to communicate, questioning the modalities through which European
communication campaigns have been carried on, these being often too general and
focused on the European institutions interests and not the citizens interests (ACN
2006: 1).
This is a crucial point, at the root of the difficulties experienced trying to
design relevant campaigns on European issues. It also emerged in some interviews with
representatives of Europe Direct, as contrasts between the European Commissions and
general publics needs emerge in their day-to-day work in local communities. On the
one hand, the Commission has been asking for communication campaigns focused on
very precise themes (such as the Constitutional Treaty, enlargement, the 2009 European
Parliament elections) whereas, on the other hand, the general public often asks Europe
Direct workers for information about very precise and concrete themes (structural funds,
the environment, health, social protection, and others).
The following quotation is quite telling in this context:

The kind of information and communication that the European Commission wants to
establish does not correspond to the kind of information the citizens ask for, and this is one
of the problems that creates an unsatisfactory situation. The citizens think that there is a
lack of information, even that the information on Europe is often abounding. The problem
is that the kind of information needed or wanted by the public is not available. (Interview n.
16 in Italy, Europe Direct)

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Europe Direct has the unpleasant task of mediating between the established
priorities (of the European Commission) and the voiced needs (of the general public),
thus reducing their capacity to work as a public relations office and to really support the
strengthening of dialogue between the institutional and non-institutional realms.
To conclude this section, it is necessary to address one last open question, since the
lack of mutual commitments between social actors, and the discrepancies between
different ideas of what should be communicated, result from difficulties in using the
feedback, collected by Europe Direct through customer satisfaction measurement
efficiently. This, as already mentioned, permits institutions to collect data on the general
publics priorities and to then adapt their communications accordingly. It is still not
clear what the European Commission is doing with the various reports and policy
recommendations that have been collected in recent years. The overall impression, as
the following quotation shows, is that inputs get lost when they reach the supranational
level:
We lack a feedback mechanism. We have been trying to discuss this with the European
Institutions for a long time. This kind of information and communication is unidirectional
and the opposite direction has not been developed yet. We have been standing at the bottom
level: we listen, we promote, we try to communicate, collecting criticisms and instances
which we send back to the Commission. But who gets them?. (Interview n. 15 in Italy,
Europe Direct)

The problems in organising data collected by different relays have been

confirmed by the European Commissioners, who admit - for different reasons - that the
mechanism is in need of improvement. One chronic problem seems to be the use of

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different methods of data-collection and, moreover, different processes to convey these

formalised data to the institutions. An external body, or agency, has the task of
summarizing the different reports sent to the supranational level and all the suggestions
and ideas collected. Again, there is a widespread impression that what is being sent to
the Commission is not really influencing their actions; that the opportunities to
influence or redirect institutional activities are few and far between. It is really useless
to start a process of critical listening if the product of this process does not reach the
upper levels, as a Representative of the Commission in Italy admitted in an interview.
The establishment of a coherent feedback mechanism could help to improve the
efficiency of the model of institutional communication and enhance the development of
symmetrical public relations. However, as already stated, this depends very much on the
will expressed by the variety of actors who at different levels of the European System
of governance - constitute the complexity of European institutional communication.
Conclusion
In this article I have argued that during the development of the EUs
communication policy the European Commission has acquired concepts, terms and
principles which are typical of public relations management. Ideas such as bidirectionality, feedback, openness central to a democratic, stable, transparent and
symmetric system of institutional communication- have been incorporated into the most
recent strategies declared by the Vice Commissioner Margot Wallstrm.
The development of a coherent and open system of institutional
communication is thus plausible and to be hoped for, in so far as it would allow the
general public to engage in a dialogic and critical relationship with European
institutions. However, some questions certainly remain open and call into question the

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feasibility of the European Commission strategy itself.

The structure of the communication policy is still top-down, even though this
evaluation is widely rejected by the Commissioners themselves, who have often
declared the need, in principle, to develop a policy based more on citizens needs than
on institutional interests. However, the framing of the agenda is still a matter for the
strong and elitist Brussels-based public sphere and is very dependant on the balance of
power between different institutional and non-institutional actors at the EU level. In
general, the public rarely has a say in matters pertaining to European policies, even
though the establishment of listening mechanisms for understanding customer response
should be improving dialogue with supranational institutions. In this regard, I stressed
that there is room for improvement in the use of feedback; its gathering should be more
coherent and there should be more evidence that data collected from the general public
reaches the supranational level and has an effect on EU policy making.
Because of their capacity to instigate direct face-to-face contacts, the Europe
Direct networks have been seen as a means to improve the connections between
institutions and the citizenry. Their creation is in line with the establishment of public
relations offices in the member states, which are thought to provide and enhance the
idea of service communication, a basic principle on which institutional activities
should be based. However, to perform such a task effectively, the Europe Direct
network needs the appropriate resources and its functions should be complemented by
the establishment of a well defined policy, able to develop a shared commitment
-between a wide set of institutional and non-institutional actors - to European
communication.
I do not believe this can happen while the EUs institutional communication is

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still based on rhetorical and ambiguous visions of the future of European Democracy
and the idealistic view that communication is necessary for democratising the system.
This overestimates the need for debate and dialogue on European issues, creating a
situation in which the focus is on building consensus and legitimacy, and not on the
genuine promotion of knowledge generated by open dialogue and effective listening to
the voice of the public, even when this is critical and questioning of policy. Institutions
communicating with citizens about questions of public concern can certainly strengthen
the democratic bases of a political community. However, this should be part of a process
consequent to the democratisation of the political community itself, not the prerequisite.
In giving so much importance to communication as a precondition for democracy, the
Commission seems to be putting the cart before the horse. Its strategy is too focused on
resolving the dilemmas afflicting the European project, rather than on gaining the
necessary credibility to develop a commitment to Europe among its citizens. A serious
overhaul of the ways of thinking about institutional communication, and a more realistic
view of its functions, could certainly help to achieve an open model of bidirectional
communication in the near future.