Brussels, 13/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - A blogger with a passion for European communication has made a comparison, from the point of view of communication with citizens of the European Union, of the written answers sent by the commissioners-designate in response to the questionnaire from MEPs. Of the 26 commissioners-designate to be interviewed by the competent Parliamentary committees, 18 politicians had nothing to say on the importance of communicating what they were doing to citizens: László Andor, Michel Barnier, Dacian Cioloº, John Dalli, Maria Damanki, Karel De Gucht, Štefan Fule, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Johannes Hahn, Siim Kallas, Janusz Lewandowski, Cecilia Malmström, Günther Oettinger, Andris Piebalgs, Olli Rehn, Algirdas Šemeta, Antonio Tajani and Androulla Vassiliou. Eight of the above have already been commissioners.
In their written responses, eight commissioners-designate speak of their desire for dialogue with citizens. Viviane Reding will make use of her experience as a former journalist with the daily Luxemburger Wort to communicate on European issues “in a more effective and targeted way for local and regional media”. For this, she hopes to use all the means at her disposal, particularly the internet. Among his priorities, Joaquín Almunia (Competition) wants “actively to inform the public both on (his) portfolio and the work of the Commission”. Connie Hedegaard (Climate Action) says that “political leaders will never succeed in bringing about lasting change without having previously explained to citizens the need for it and having got their agreement”. Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) points out that citizens can contact her on her internet site. Rumiana Jeleva (International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response) believes that enhanced cooperation with the European Parliament is “the best way to involve citizens and inform them of the work of the EU. See: http: //http://www.lacomeuropeenne.fr/index.php
EUROPA. With the new Commission about to take up office, those in charge of departmental and Directorate General internet sites at the Commission have written to José Manuel Barroso and the commissioners-designate to call for a genuine internal communication culture. They take the view that the Commission should make use of social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to make it more visible and that staff should be allowed to communicate on these sites and to have their own blogs. Training to enable them able to do so should be provided and additional human and financial resources made available. They say that EU internet sites should be concerned above all with the needs of users and that pages written in obscure jargon and containing less relevant information should be removed. (M.B./transl.rt)