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Better communication of EU issues is crucial for
European democracy, stresses the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament in a
draft resolution adopted on Wednesday. Public service broadcasters
should cover EU matters, while governments, parties and politicians need
to contribute more to explaining them to citizens, say MEPs. They also
suggest incorporating EU studies into school curricula.
Although the Lisbon Treaty has given
Parliament more power in EU decision-making, citizens still "see Europe
as still being too distant and having too little influence in solving
their real problems". According to MEPs, declining voter turnout
"highlights the need to continue efforts to overcome the distance
between the EU and European citizens", and this should primarily be done
through better communication aimed at creating a "European public
sphere".
Public service broadcasters should cover the
EU
While "the member states should ensure the
independence of public service broadcasters", the latter "have a
responsibility to cover the EU", stress MEPs. They "encourage the member
States to include EU coverage when determining the remit of public
service broadcasters". At the same time the committee underlines that
"public broadcasters need to look critically, with full editorial
independence, at their own EU coverage and set ambitious targets".
Moreover, the EU "should foster the establishment of trans-national
media [...], while tightening up the rules intended to safeguard
pluralism and combat concentration of media ownership".
Social
media: huge potential, yet with underlying dangers
MEPs
in the committee "point out that social media have immense potential
for reaching young people and therefore encourage the Commission and
Parliament to further strengthen their activities in this area". At the
same time they stress that "their reliability as sources cannot always
be sufficiently guaranteed and they cannot be considered to be
professional media". Moreover, "the way in which data is handled on
social network platforms can in many cases be dangerous and give rise to
serious breaches of journalistic ethics", therefore "caution is
required when taking up these new tools". MEPs also "emphasise the
importance of drawing up a code of ethics applicable to new media".
Governments,
parties and politicians to play their role
MEPs
underline the need for the Member States to have a specialised European
affairs office, with a person responsible for explaining the local,
regional and national implications of European policies and for acting
as a point of reference to whom citizens can direct their attention on
EU matters.
The committee also stresses the important role
played by political parties in shaping public opinion on European
issues, and "take the view that they should give European issues a more
prominent position in their programmes".
EU and
journalism should be studied at school
According to
MEPs, "improving citizens’ knowledge of the EU requires EU studies to be
incorporated into the school curricula". They call for "covering the EU
more extensively, focusing on the historical background, purpose and
workings of the EU, in all education curricula". At the same time they
encourage the member states to "incorporate courses in journalism using
new media into their school curricula".
EU
institutional communication to be improved
Finding
the recent decrease in the number of accredited journalists in Brussels
"extremely worrying", MEPs suggest "supporting those currently in
Brussels". The committee would like to see a group formed from among
the Brussels press corps to help improve coverage of EU news.
MEPs
welcome the Commission’s and Parliament’s training schemes for
journalists on EU matters and call for them to be extended. At the same
time they propose giving larger budgets and greater independence to the
EP information offices in member states in the field of communication.
MEPs
believe that the EP internet television channel EuroparlTV "should be
made more effective" while ensuring its editorial independence, and
"making its content as widely available as possible for TV channels and
online media who wish to use it".
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Vor zehn Jahren verpflichteten sich die europäischen Staats- und Regierungschefs, bis 2010 die Armut in der EU abzuschaffen. Der Stichtag rückt näher, doch das Ziel liegt noch in weiter Ferne.
