Public consultation - A new communication strategy launched by the EU through the web

Extract

[...] In this case, the communication strategy fails, because there's no interaction between receiver and senders. Even if silence can be interpreted as an answer, it‘s a negative mark to reveal the wide gap between the EU and its citizens. « La citoyenneté européenne doit devenir une pratique fondée sur de véritables mécanismes d'appropriation et de participation, également inclusive des étrangers non communautaires. » Public consultation launched by the EU is part from these processes to make the European citizenship a practice founded on participative mechanisms by people in Europe within Europe. [...]

[...] Argument comes from the Latin verb ‘arguere' and means to bring someone to acknowledge something. Strategy can also have a business connotation in our case. Communication strategies are used by the marketing department in a firm. To draw a parallel with the EU that means that the EU used the same process as a firm. I don't completely agree with that but the term ‘communication strategy' implies this point of view. ‘Public consultation' means that it's a consultative act: asking for an opinion. In this case, it's asking for a public opinion. [...]

[...] This consultative act is only a consultative act that means that the EU doesn't have to take into account what is said by people. We can wonder why the EU is asking for some advice if advice is not taken into account. That is the key phrase if we understand the public consultation as a communication strategy to sell and promote the EU. To develop and build the concept of ‘European citizenship', it implies exchanges between people and UE. The main question remains: does it fail or succeed? Who has the power? II. The media The EU launches public consultation through the internet. [...]

[...] Public consultation – A new communication strategy launched by the EU through the web On 29th May 2005, French people refused the EU constitution, I was in Italy and had the news on a bus, through my neighbour's newspaper. In this context, the ‘no' from French public opinion was the opportunity to reveal the wide gap between the EU and its ‘citizens'.This example is relevant to show us that the EU can't go ahead without its ‘citizens'. Therefore, one way to resolve the gap is asking people their advice about daily and hot issues in order to create and build a dialogue, and why not a European citizenship feeling. [...]

[...] If the internet can reach everybody, we can wonder if EU communication strategy is reachable by people. But on the other hand, a virtual access to the EU, makes the UE not so real in people's daily life. There's no human face to combine with EU but only EU cities such as Brussels and Strasbourg and institution's names. That means the EU process and jargon is not easy to understand and not very attractive at first sight. So that the internet is not enough to make EU reachable to people. [...]