REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL - Explaining Europe's Enlargement

1. Introduction

The Laeken European Council in December 2001 confirmed the Unions determination "to bring the accession negotiations with the candidate countries that are ready to a successful conclusion by the end of 2002, so that those countries can take part in the European Parliament elections in 2004 as members." Furthermore, the European Council agreed with the Commission that, "if the present rate of progress is maintained, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Slovenia could be ready".

As the 5th and most challenging enlargement of the Europen Union draws closer the interest among the citizens of the current and future Member States is increasing. Various stakeholders, such as interest groups, business organisations, and non-governmental organisations, are becoming more interested in enlargement as issues arise that directly affect them. These stakeholders are likely to play an increasing role in the debate as the enlargement process moves forward.

This enlargement will change the face of Europe and will affect all Community institutions and areas of policy. The two underlying strategic aims, projecting political stability and strengthening Europe as an economic power, can be achieved.

The benefits of enlargement are already visible. Stable democracies have emerged in Central and Eastern Europe. The credit of this success belongs mainly to the people of these countries themselves. They alone took the decision to build open societies, modern democracies and functioning market economies. But undoubtedly the process was supported and encouraged by the prospect of European integration.

The enlargement of the Union will strengthen its ability to confront the challenges of the new century. The inclusion of new Member States, with their acceptance of its rules and policies, will improve our capacity to safeguard Europe's environment, to combat crime, to improve social conditions, and to manage migratory pressures.

An enlargement project of the present scale requires a communication strategy spread over a number of years to keep citizens of the Union and the candidate countries informed, ensure their participation in the process and win their support. Only genuine participation can achieve this. This is an important task for all governments in Member States and candidate countries, to which the Commission is ready to contribute.

As the accession negotiations now move towards a conclusion, the need to better explain the issues, both to the general public, and to an influential and increasingly active community of stakeholders becomes even more important. During the period of ratification, public opinion will play a key role: referenda are likely to take place in most candidate countries. Parliaments will be directly involved, beginning with the European Parliament which will be asked to give its assent. This ratification debate needs to take place on the basis of a full and well-informed discussion, in which the full participation of citizens and stakeholders is essential.

In order to respond to this changing environment and to be better prepared for the challenges to come, the Commission's communication strategy on enlargement is now moving to a new phase of activity. This report briefly outlines what has been achieved so far, and indicates the direction of the strategy in the future, while concluding that further co-operation among the Union's institutions in the joint endeavour of explaining Europe's enlargement is required.

The Commission presents this report in response to the request of the Council (General Affairs) of 10 December 2001.

2. Background

The Commission, for its part, established its communication strategy for enlargement in May 2000. It delivered to the Inter-Institutional Group on Information in February 2002 a document entitled "Explaining Enlargement" that gives a detailed account of the implementation of the strategy so far [1].

[1] http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/communication/index.htm

The Commission announced the objectives of its communication strategy in May 2000. The Commission 's communication strategy consists, in both current and future Member States, in explaining the process of enlargement of the EU and the advantages citizens can expect.

Responsibility for implementation lies largely with the Representations and Delegations of the Commission in the countries concerned, but DG Enlargement in Brussels co-ordinates the implementation of the strategy, manages the central web site on the Europa Server [2], and produces information products for use in the communication strategy.

[2] See http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/index.htm

After the successful launch of the euro, the activities of the Commission's representations in Member States are increasingly focusing on enlargement, explaining the process and its implications, and providing information on the future Member States. The strategy generally followed by Commission representations has in a first stage been to work through informed or influential bodies, to respond to fears or concerns expressed in particular segments of the population, and is moving, in a later stage, to address more directly the general public.

Often working in co-operation with the European Parliament, representations carry out projects in partnership with information networks and relays, such as the Carrefours ruraux, the Info-Points Europe and the large information centres jointly run by the national governments and the Commission.

Other partners include civil society organisations, and, increasingly, national, regional or local authorities. Such co-operation has on some occasions taken place via the conclusion of a "Convention" with the authorities of the Member State concerned. Conventions, which identify actions to be undertaken and the budgets to be assigned have so far been signed with Austria, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the German State of Niedersachsen and the German Federal Agency for Political Education.

Activities so far carried out include research projects, public debates, seminars and conferences involving specific groups such as people living in regions bordering the further Member States, NGOs, young people, business, farmers, trade unions, etc. Many brochures have been produced, both of a general character for wide public distribution, or more specific in content, including, for example, a media pack for journalists. There have been numerous media projects, including information and training of journalists, study visits to candidate countries, and so on. Research has shown the importance of working more closely with the media, as the source from which most people receive their information, and, in particular with television.

In the candidate countries, the work of the Delegations has moved from the provision of general information explaining the Union to a more sophisticated task of explaining the general implications of accession, and its specific implications to particular groups interested in certain aspects of the enlargement process. The Delegations now draw on much the same infrastructure for the implementation of the strategy as the Representations, relying on a network based around European Union Information Centres (EUICs), which are established in all capitals of the central European candidate countries. These centres receive an average of around 10.000 visitors per year and co-operate with a wide network of affiliated bodies to serve audiences in the regions.

Web sites developed by all Delegations are usually among the most visited sites in the country, receiving up to 30.000 visits per month. As a means of reaching more people across the country, the group of public speakers, "Team Europe", is being gradually expanded to address schools, local associations and other audiences around the country.

Written material produced by Delegations includes specific brochures, such as "Your business and the Euro", fact sheets ("Explaining the Sapard programme"..."Free movement of persons"...) as well as entertaining and user-friendly leaflets. Newsletters of different formats are sent, often by e-mail to interested readers, providing a regular update of developments in the enlargement process, but also of EU policies in general.

Projects are managed in co-operation with specific groups, including the Church (for example, in Poland and Lithuania) farmers, trade unionists (Hungary...), the elderly, young people (the Delegation in Latvia for example published teaching materials for schools). Well-attended cultural events include EU Film Festivals (e.g. in the Czech Republic and Romania). Think tanks offer partners for seminars (European Institute of Cyprus, Malta- EU Information Centre...), and information relays are often established in existing networks (chambers of commerce, libraries, etc.)

The state of public opinion

The development of public opinion over the past few years has had a direct impact on the way in which the Commission manages its communication strategies. The following main observations can be made:

* In the Central European candidate countries, the general post-1989 enthusiasm about membership of the EU has been succeeded by a narrowing of the margin between those in favour and those against membership. There is often also a significant minority expressing themselves as "undecided". The issue of accession occupies a position that is never far from the centre of the political debate, and is, therefore subject to the normal swings in opinion experienced by political issues of consequence

* The greatest cause of movement in the opinion polls in the candidate countries is developments in the accession negotiations, where perception of being put at a disadvantage in the negotiations has led to drops in support for membership in a number of occasions by up to 10 points

* In the Member States, the level of knowledge both about enlargement as a process and, more so, about the future Member States themselves is not yet sufficient. Citizens in Member States that border on the candidate countries are more likely to harbour concerns about the implications of enlargement. Citizens in general are less concerned about enlargement itself than about concrete issues, such as unemployment, crime, and the environment. Many link fears and concerns in these areas to enlargement.

* Despite the amount of information available many people in both present and future Member States still feel not well informed. This suggests that the targeting of information can be improved.

3. Lessons learned

As the accession negotiations come to their expected close at the end of 2002, most of the countries covered by the communication strategy will move into the ratification phase. The specific challenges for the communication strategy in this phase are the following:

In Member States, it is important to increase the awareness and knowledge of the countries that will soon be joining the Union. More needs to be done to explain the results of the whole enlargement process, including the success of 13 years of the Phare programme and the positive experience of the new pre-accession instruments, Ispa and Sapard, and to demonstrate the enormous progress that has been made in economic and political reform in the region since 1989; this will help to dispel general fears as to the preparedness of the candidates to join the Union.

In candidate countries and in Member States, efforts should focus on informing citizens about the ongoing and complex process, which is perceived in a different way in each country. Therefore, the Commission has adopted, and will continue to follow a largely decentralised approach, that responds to the specific concerns of citizens in the different countries.

4. The road ahead - Partnership for a successful enlargement

1. Co-operation with governments:

* The major role in explaining enlargement to citizens in candidate countries, as in the Member States, should come from the national government. The Commission's contribution will be to stimulate or develop partnerships in order to include sufficient objective information in the public debate.

* Informing the population of the Member States about individual candidate countries is in the first place the responsibility of the governments of the respective countries. This is an area where more needs to be done.

* Member States (current and future), Commission and Parliament should co-operate in the framework of the new general communication strategy of the Union that is currently being prepared. Complementarity of our approaches in current and future Member States, and co-operation at all appropriate levels, is essential. The Commission can add value to this strategy given its unique role in the pre-accession preparations.

* It is important to foster co-operation among the candidate countries. While this already takes place among the Commission Delegations and their information staff, the Commission will seek to promote greater exchange of knowledge among those involved in the communication strategy on enlargement in the candidate countries.

2. Co-operation with civil society:

* A successful communication strategy involves not only communication from the Commission and Member States, but an open discussion involving all levels of society. It will therefore be important to develop or support networks of NGOs and other parts of civil society, within and between countries. For this purpose more work is needed, in particular with key target groups such as the media.

3. A demonstrated commitment to clarity and openness:

* Publication of information on the accession negotiations, the pre-accession strategy, and the candidate countries, on the Internet will be enhanced by the Commission in order to stimulate the debate. This reflects its commitment to conduct the enlargement process in a transparent way.

4. A continuous commitment to information:

* The overwhelming conclusion of the large number of studies which have been published at European and national level is that, if conducted well, enlargement will bring major benefits both to the existing Union and to the acceding countries. Enlargement is a positive-sum process, in which the advantages far outweigh the costs. The Commission considers that a comprehensive survey should be made of these analyses, so that their results can be made more widely available to Europe's citizens.

* It will be important to maintain a commitment to continued communication after accession, in order to ensure a smooth transition to the enlarged Union

5. Referenda in candidate countries:

* Referenda will take place in all or most of the candidate countries. As the accession negotiations proceed, it will become easier to identify the issues on which the campaign may need to focus during a referendum, such as questions of sovereignty, national and cultural identity or financial and agricultural issues. Therefore, the strategy needs to be flexible enough to take such differences into account.

5. Conclusion

Although the communication strategy for enlargement should remain largely decentralised, so as to address the specific concerns of each country, a basic message is needed from the Union as a whole, including the institutions, Member States and regions. This is of the utmost importance to convince citizens.

The clear message, which should be given by all actors responsible for the success of the process, is that enlargement is a win-win game, in which the re-unification of Europe will extend the area of peace, prosperity and security throughout the continent.

The Commission recommends the Council to give a strong endorsement to this message about the benefits of enlargement for the Union, and a signal that a successful enlargement of the European Union requires concerted co-operation to implement a comprehensive communication strategy, with current and future Member States, on the one hand, and the European Institutions on the other.

ANNEX

EuroBarometer 56

Support for enlargement [3] in percent in EU Member States

[3] Fieldwork realised in October-November 2001, Publication April 2002; Question: "What is your opinion on each of the following statement- Please tell me for each proposal, whether you are for it or against it. «The enlargement of the European Union to include new countries".

(in brackets: Change since EB 55, spring 2001)

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Applicant Countries EuroBarometer (autumn 2001)

Voting Intentions regarding EU [4]

[4] Fieldwork realised in October 2001, report published in March 2002 (figures may have evolved slightly since than) Question: "If there were to be a referendum tomorrow on the question of your country's membership of the European Union, would you personally vote for or against it-"

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