Via Twitter I came across this post in French by Michael Malherbe about a letter sent from Commissioner responsible for Communications, Viviane Reding, to Commission President Barroso. Euractiv managed to get hold of a copy of the letter that contains 14 points about how communications are to be improved. The irony is that it looks like a scan of a letter sent on paper to Barroso. So much for modern internal comms in the Commission!
But what’s actually in the 14 points?
EU David and Goliath
OK, here we go again. Open Europe having a further whine at something going on in Brussels, this time the amount of money the European Union spends on ‘propaganda’. Also not a surprise is the choice of EUObserver to carry a column from Open Europe’s Lorraine Mullally, and in Sweden Timbro is apparently trying to get the Swedish Presidency to address the ‘issue’. The gist of the message is summed up with these lines from Mullally:
With so much public money at their disposal, the EU institutions are able to propel their own vision of the future of Europe, and also begin to create a monopoly over what should be regarded as the “facts.” The institutions claim to want a wider debate on Europe, but by trying to suppress those who do not support their vision, they are stifling debate.
But is there actually any issue to deal with here? The money to which Mullally refers is a supposed sum of €2.4 billion (or about 2% of the EU budget) that is allocated to communications projects. Fair amounts of money for sure, but dwarfed by the budgets of national public sector broadcasters, a point made in reply by Richard Walker, who is also keen to point out that many of the projects are editorially independent of the EU institutions.
There are of course some legitimate complaints – some of the EU publicity materials are really over the top, and some plans are ill conceived. But is all of this any worse than the comms work of a national government? I think not.
Last but not least the EU does not have at its disposal one of the best means of political communication – elections. European Parliament elections are still essentially second order national elections – if a politician gets selected high up on a national party’s list then selection is almost certain. Essentially politicians communicate what they do when it’s in their interests to do so, essentially to secure re-election. To make such a system at European level would require more power to the parliament and, one might dare say, a federal Europe. It’s much, much harder to get any agreement on that than it is to get some politicians to part with €2.4 billion for some communications projects.
Until then Open Europe’s David can take on Wallström’s Goliath but the stones are rather misdirected.
Anna Diamantopoulou - CC / Flickr
OK, I am putting 2+2 together and making 10, but if I get this one right then you heard it here first! 
Andy Carling, a regular commenter on this blog, stated that he had heard Poul Nyrup Rasmussen say at a press conference that the PES does have a candidate for President of the Commission, but Rasmussen would not name that person.
At the same time my attention has been drawn to an interview to Sveriges Radio (här på svenska) given by social democrat Vice President of the European Commission Margot Wallström where she states that she would like to see former Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Anna Diamantopoulou as successor to Barroso. This is followed up in Swedish by AiP and Byggnads (one of Sweden’s largest trade unions), and in English by the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers.
So is the PES lining up Diamantopoulou? And if so, is this a good idea?
Frankly I know very little about Diamantopoulou, other than that she’s a socialist and served in Romano Prodi’s Commission between 1999 and 2004. I hence have no clue whether she is adequately good to be a viable candidate. If you reckon she is or is not any good please do let me know in the comments.
But more important than that: could she ever even be nominated? Firstly there’s a sort of consensus that the Commission President should come from the largest party in the European Parliament after the elections. So the first hurdle to overcome would be for the PES to win the elections.
Secondly, while polls look OK for Diamantopoulou’s party – PASOK – the Greek government is still centre right, with a tiny majority in parliament. Would Karamanlis ever consider nominating someone from an alternative political family? Highly unlikely was the opinion of an expert in Greek politics that I asked for an opinion on the matter. The same could be said for other possible centre left nominees – Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and Margot Wallström* herself – would the centre-right governments in their respective countries of origin actually nominate them? I think that danger would be less for my preferred socialist – Pascal Lamy – as Sarkozy previously backed socialist Strauss Kahn as Managing Director of the IMF.
I suspect that if it came to it the EP could bulldozer through its candidate, but the short term danger is surely in terms of PR. If Karamanlis is clever and Diamantopoulou’s name is raised by the PES he would surely state that he would not even nominate her to be the Greek member of the European Commission – would that not kill her candidacy dead and make the PES look a bit ridiculous?
Looking at it the other way, the chance that the PES even nominates someone would make the election much more interesting. It would give the socialists a figurehead, someone to rally around, and help put across some clear and determined vision for the future policies of the European Commission. Diamantopoulou’s nomination poses some complications and I would personally prefer Lamy, but if the PES do go for Diamantopoulou (or indeed for anyone half reasonable) that will be a good step forward for EU-wide democracy and will help make the EP elections a bit more interesting.
* – Wallström has continually ruled out wanthing to be Commission President
The 2004-2009 Barroso Commission is starting to wind down. Brussels has its eye on the European Elections in June, and the selection of a new Commission due to take office from 1st November.
One of the Commissioners for whom I have developed quite some respect since 2004 is Margot Wallström; she has a refreshingly frank approach that has won her some friends outside the Commission (although few inside it by all accounts) and has been determined and diligent in making the most of a near-impossible task – communicating the EU. However Margot has no intention of serving a further term, and even if she wanted to the centre-right Swedish administration would not nominate her (Wallström is a Social Democrat).
So what should the new Communications Commissioner actually do? I assume the portfolio will still exist; as far as I’m concerned it’s still very much needed.
When Neil Kinnock was European Commissioner for administrative reform between 1999 and 2004 he had basically one task for his 5 year term: to sort out the Commission staffing regulations and recruitment procedures. Tedious you may argue, but something that was long overdue and vital. The sole overriding task facing the new Commissioner for Communication is no less pressing: to sort out the European Commission’s websites.
Graham Watson MEP - CC / Flickr
A post at Tom Harris MP’s blog caught my eye this morning in which he cites comments by Graham Watson MEP that it’s actually his wife writing his Twitter feed on his behalf, and that he has asked staff to hoover up Facebook friends for him.
Quite frankly I don’t know what to make of Watson’s frank admission! It has started a discussion on Twitter involving Nosemonkey, NEurope, EUlondonrep and MacarenaRG about what role politicians’ staff should play in doing online work for them.
There are for sure politicians that are much worse with regard to use of their staff for online engagement – Martin Schulz, wannabe PES President of the EP, has 4575 friends on Facebook – I rather suspect he doesn’t know too many of these people and I do wonder if he has ever logged on to Facebook himself. Maybe if someone working for him has Google Alerts setup they might reply in the comments? Anders Fogh Rasmussen has a better strategy, using a supporter page effectively rather than simply befriending people.
All of this leads me to the main issue: there are different ways for politicians to use social media, and ways for them to make it clear who is doing what.
I inherently want someone calling themselves ‘Harriet Harman’ on Facebook to actually be Harriet Harman; if I want to support Harriet Harman and do not know her I’ll join a Facebook Group or a supporter page. That’s the reason why there was no Harriet Harman profile on Facebook for the Deputy Leadership campaign*; she was not using Facebook herself at the time, so groups were the solution. The same applies to Twitter – if I follow grahamwatsonmep I hope that it’s actually Watson himself behind it. If it’s his campaign team then run watsonforpresident in Twitter (or something equivalent).
The same applies to blogging – Harriet wrote her own blog during the Labour Deputy Leadership campaign, sometimes with spelling errors, prompting accusations in the blog comments that she was employing someone that could not spell. Well the errors too were actually genuine. I don’t think it’s legitimate to expect a politician to read everything that every other blogger writes about them online (employees can compile summaries for example), but I think it’s a perfectly decent expectation that if there is a blog in the name of the politician that they at least write the content for it. In Brussels I do think that Margot Wallström gets it and that her blog is genuine.
So for me the bottom line is this: Facebook profile, Twitter in the politician’s name, and a personal blog should be done by the politician themselves. Groups, pages, Twitter for campaigns, analysis of web content elsewhere are the places that staff should be involved.
(* – there is now, but I have nothing to do with it)
Just a few lines, but they say a lot about the person:
By Friday I had to get up to prepare for a dinner at home with Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden as one of the guests (!) She accepted gracefully the not so professional service (= me and my husband not always knowing from which side to serve our homemade food) and was a great guest!
Those words are from the latest entry in Commission VP Margot Wallström’s blog – a very personal sentence, heavy with political meaning for this centre-left politician, originally from Skellefteå: if a political blog is nothing more than presenting government information and adding a comment function, then is it worth bothering at all? Wallström manages to convey a picture of her as a person, building a rapport of sorts with her readership.
Much as I admire him as a politician, David Miliband’s blog is often rather dry and the presentation is even more dull. Phil Woolas’s Bali Diary had promise, but will there be more? The DWP blog (now closed) was an example of what not to do – tedious. Interestingly if you type ‘UK Government Blogs‘ into Google you get the Microsoft UK Government Blog as the number 1 result. Miliband’s blog is powered by some gruesome Microsoft technology (it has a .net favicon) so perhaps that’s the root of the problem – does government actually have any people working within its IT who – both in terms of programming or strategy – have any clue about the blogosphere? Looking at Margot’s blog should be the first these people should do.
[UPDATE - 08.01.2008]
I’ve just come across some more analysis of these matters from Stuart Bruce and PR Blogger, looking at governmental blogs and what is and is not party political.