Mr President, the European Union faces great challenges over the next few years, challenges which all demand greater involvement on the part of the public. With a view to enhancing knowledge and understanding of what the EU really stands for and what it does, the EU must therefore develop a new information and communication strategy for its citizens. The objective of such a policy must be to see information and communication from the citizen’s point of view and, in this connection, two factors must be taken into consideration. Firstly, people do not, in general, distinguish between the institutions of the EU: the Council, the Commission and Parliament. Instead, they see everything in terms of Brussels. Secondly, people want to receive their information from the sources closest to them, including those that are physically closest. Therefore, the key messages in this report are those relating to coordination and decentralisation. What is required is coordination between the institutions where information to citizens and communication with citizens is concerned, together with the highest possible degree of decentralisation in all information and communication activities of the European institutions. It is very gratifying that the Commission and Parliament have resumed and strengthened their cooperation in the Interinstitutional Group on Information and, when the group meets tomorrow, we can also feel very pleased that the Council is participating for the first time in this important coordination of the work. When it comes to decentralisation, it is important that the Member States participate more actively in the work. Decentralisation means that the tasks of providing information are delegated to the representations in the Member States, together with the responsibility for these and the necessary financial resources. In this way, the tasks are carried out as close to the people as possible and in the manner required by the people in the particular country, region or local community. At present, far too much information about the EU is provided in too general a form with, for example, the same brochure being translated into 11 languages. However, people in Lapland and Sicily may not necessarily have the same requirements, in terms either of the content of the information or in the way they receive it. Coordination is understood as overall high-level planning, that is to say at the level of the Interinstitutional Group on Information. In the report, the European Parliament asks that the Commission draw up an annual report on activities as a whole – including those that take place in the respective Directorates-General, for there is apparently no one who has an overview of what happens there. This report concerns the frameworks for information and communication. In a few months’ time, the Commission will be producing another statement on the content. Where the frameworks, or tools, are concerned, we know that more than 60% of people want to receive their information from the television. We must therefore consider whether we should create a European Union TV channel dealing with European Union politics. The ‘C-SPAN’ model from the United States, ‘BBC Parliament’ in Britain and the German parliamentary channel, ‘Phoenix’, as well as DK4 in Denmark are various models that can be considered at European Union level. The Commission and Parliament have combined in setting up a service called ‘Europe Direct’, through which people can very quickly obtain answers via the Internet or over the telephone about where they should apply in order to obtain the information they require. This is a service that has already been very well received by the people of Europe. It is a splendid initiative. When we turn to the content of this policy, we must also proceed on the basis of what people want, and what they want is information about those matters close to their everyday lives, such as food safety, employment, the environment, traffic, human genetics and so on. We must be very careful about preventing any propaganda from the institutions of the European Union. Information must be as reliable, unbiased and pluralist as possible, and those who provide it must be accountable. Where pluralism is concerned, people could, of course, be made aware of points of view other than those of the institutions by means of Internet links from European institution web sites to the web sites of Eurosceptics, NGOs and others. It will cost money to turn this report into a reality. We would ask the Commission how much. On the other hand, the task is enormously important for democracy and, at present, the information budget in the EU is approximately a quarter of a euro per person per year. It is a small amount, given the task concerned, especially in comparison with the amounts spent in the Member States on information provided by national and local authorities. I have many people to thank for assisting in the preparation of this report: officials of the Commission, Parliament and the Council, many experts and a large number of NGOs but, first and foremost of course, my colleagues in the Interinstitutional Group on Information and in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport. Many thanks.

Political group: ELDR