Posts Tagged European Parliament

60 seconds and more

Posted by Brigitte Alfter in EU on April 13, 2010

A while ago I was asked to give classes about EU-journalism at a journalism school in Belgium. “Do remember to tell them, why the EU is so boring,” the coordinator joked. But since when has power been boring?

Still that is one overriding perception. EU? Boring. Avoid even mentioning the word, journalists are advised by editors and others. On newsy sites EU coverage simply does not give clicks by readers – at least that’s the prejudice.

So what to do?

In Flanders a journalist organisation asks citizens to take cameras and go filming the EU. “Whereis.eu is an online competition that challenges everybody to make a movie of 60 seconds about the European Union. What does the EU mean to you? What impact does it have on your daily life? And maybe your one-minute movie will appear on the International Film Festival of Flanders in Ghent,” according to the website waaris.eu.  And there is the tempting option to win up to €2500.

It’ll be interesting to see, how the camera-generation will solve that task.

But the Flemish journalists are not the only ones struggling to find a way of telling the story about this powerful thing called the EU. The European Parliament currently is asked to look at a draft that aims at building a European public sphere put forward by the Danish liberal MEP Morten Løkkegaard. The draft has already stirred a lively debate in Denmark. Thus confirming Løkkegaards assumption, that the national public sphere functions nicely – contrary to the European one.

The stir was caused by one well-placed article published by Løkkegaard and two other Danish MEPs Christel Schaldemose and Emilie Turunen, in the large Danish daily Berlingske Tidende under the headline “TV has to take the EU seriously”. The EP draft supports the idea of stronger obligations for public service broadcasters to cover European affairs and an EU-financed but independent team of high level journalists covering EU affairs in Brussels.

The online Danish journalist magazine Journalisten.dk already at 8.10 am published a news story quoting the article of the three MEPs under a headline claiming, that Danish public service broadcasters would be “forced” to cover the EU more. National public sphere of debate when it gets up early.

Later the same day Morten Løkkegaard appeared in a radio report covering media questions on national public radio DR  explaining and defending the draft.

Most interesting for a Brussels audience is probably the drafts suggestion to find EU funding for the Brussels based team of journalists covering European affairs. They should have a contract of editorial independence and the team should consist of an elite of top-level journalists, Løkkegaard explained on Danish Radio. “This is both provocation and experiment from my side,” the MEP explained. “It would be a fantastic step ahead, if they dare do it,” he said.

But creating a European Public Sphere also consists of a lot of small steps, Løkkegaard admits. The next steps for his draft report will be a committee vote expected on June 2nd and a plenary vote expected on July 5th.

, , , , , , , ,

1 Comment

Cross-questioning

Posted by Brigitte Alfter in Acces to documents, Democracy, EU, Freedom of information on January 14, 2010

An obvious question for the incoming commissioner of agriculture tomorrow is about who gets the EU farmsubsidies, and who uses them for what. In other words a question by the Budget Control Committe (last question page 3). Why?

In order to make a good plan for the future, we should have a good picture of the current situation. What looks so obvious still is a difficulty when it comes to the EU farmsubsidies. Tomorrow’s questioning of the incoming commissioner for agriculture, Mr.Dacian Ciolos, is the perfect place to ask, how he intends to do move this large part of EU policies towards a new policy without full transparency.

The necessary information will get out eventually. However if the Parliament, journalists, the general public have to waste time on getting out data, there simply will be less time for the relevant debate. Also previously the data got out eventually, se for example why and how the Farmsubsidy team did it here.

Mr. Ciolos will have to draft “proposals for the future of the common agricultural policy in the post-2013 programming period,” according to the letter by president Barroso and to “promote a more competitive EU agriculture in an open world trade environment.”

The drafts – according to Mr. Barroso – should be “based on a comprehensive ex post evaluation of the value added and functioning of the current policy and on the results of the 2008 Health Check.” Thus the wish of Barroso.

The first and important step on the way is to allow not only the Commission but also the Parliament and the European public to be able to make this analysis.

The Budget Control Committee asks, whether the Commission is ready to publish “a list of all beneficiaries of all forms of EU funding on a single, easily accessible and user-friendly database”. This questions should, of course, be asked with a special emphasis to one of those commissioners with the largest budget post under his responsibility.

And he should be asked this question eventhough the outgoing commission has introduced partial transparency on farmsubsidy payments. Unfortunatel  the published data are still very rough and thus of little use other than to ignite envy. How can the public – for example – get an impression of the effort for the environment via farmsubsidies, when only the name of the recipient and the amount received is public, but not the budget line, for which the money was granted? How can anyone get a decent preparation for the second task of Mr. Ciolos, namely preparing the EU agriculture for a competitive world trade environment, when we only know the EU support structure for exporting agricultural products for a few member states?

Granting transparency is not a problem. The technical means nowadays are all there, and the Commission holds all necessary data in one central database. Allow the European parliament and the European public to make enlightened decisions, when something as important as the future of the common agricultural policy is on the agenda.

The information must get out and usually will. But the easier the access to information is made, the more focus can be on a constructive debate.

, , , , ,

1 Comment