Carina's Blog

the EU and its image problem...or communication problem?

Another general thing that came to my (and certainly not just to my) attention whilst browsing blogs and other EU-related resources around the EU is what can losely be described as an „image problem“, as well as a communication problem.

Apart from the eternal battlefield of national interests versus federal interests,economic differences and the everlasting ghost of national identity that still somehow outlives all current cultural crises it mainly accounts for - most people are not even aware of the most basic facts and figures around the European Union and very happily jump to conclusions due to one or the other fatalist rumour of how bad the idea and realisation of the European Union really is.

So, fair enough, one might say, Politics is not the most exciting topic in the world, and the representation of the European Union, what it does, what it wants, who represents us on European Level and moreover – the representation of its citizens in the European media. Whilst some of that might be down to a general weariness of political issues, especially with the young, and an even bigger general weariness of really getting into the facts before jumping to conclusions, Public Relations are not rated to highly in the EU institutions.(something Europhobia mentioned some posts ago. Or it's rather not very „grass-roots“.

A positive example is Swedish EU Commission vide president Margot Wallstroem who maintains a blog and comunicates with the people (something probably typical of the Swedish „close-to-the-people“ approach to politics) – if they are interested (and to get them interested is the salient point). She also emphasises that „we need to listen more and become more democratic“, whilst other representatives tell similar stories.

Whilst,as I said, PR is not the only problem of the European Union,it becomes obvious why those legions of anti-EU crusaders could be led to think that the EU is not doing a very democratic job - it does not communicate with its members well enough on the whole. Good to have so many blogs from the people, but what about the representatives? And what about both their commuication?

And then it's always easy to jump to negative conclusions (some examples I remember from Euromove's "myth" section) or follow those who cling to the old as what seems safe and secure as if that helped with keep up with the cultural, economic and environmental changes that inevitably occur no matter what.

posted by Carina @ 1:56 pm