Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-08-Speech-2-300"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20030408.10.2-300"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following our communication of 2 July on an information and communication strategy for the European Union, the Commission is very pleased to note Parliament's support for this initiative, which is expressed in the report by Mr Bayona, whom I should like to congratulate.
As you know, the role of the European Union is viewed much more favourably by third countries than from within the Member States themselves. At our last meeting of the interinstitutional group, we thought it was essential to start working this year on information actions, targeted initially at opinion formers and the appropriate intermediary information providers, on the role of the Union in the world. As the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy rightly stresses, rapid progress needs to be made on this dimension of our information and communication strategy. This is all the more justified in the light of the seriousness of recent events. At this stage, and with the Council's full agreement, it is proposed to adopt a three-pronged approach to this theme. First, globalisation, which ties in with the Cancun meeting this autumn. Secondly, the proximity policy, which will accrue renewed geostrategic importance after enlargement. And finally, the common foreign and security policy and its initial work on defence policy. As you are aware, in order to do this, the Commission has submitted a supplementary and amending budget. From now on then the amount of work that is done on this new theme as of this year is in your hands.
Mr President, those in a few words are the Commission's main observations on Mr
Bayona's excellent report. As you will have noted, there is no doubt that our joint approach, the result of long interinstitutional experience, is bearing fruit. But to be effective, it is vital for a majority of Member States to follow the example of the coordinated approach adopted by the institutions. Only a structured partnership with the competent national authorities will enable us to exploit this strategy to its full potential, a strategy which is now co-owned by the institutions, and to ensure that it has maximum impact at regional and even at local level, in the general interests of the Union and for the benefit of all of its people.
Indeed, in view of the interinstitutional strategy that we wish to develop to bolster the European Union's image, it is particularly important for all of the institutions to support this initiative and participate in making our shared objective a reality. Following the adoption of a particularly positive position by the Council of Ministers on 10 December and the first report of the European Parliament, which was drafted by Mr Andreasen, the Commission therefore welcomes Parliament's commitment to this cause and the specific proposals that Mr Bayona makes in his report, which combine technical expertise with an awareness of the political sensitivity of the subject.
I should like to respond to these under two headings. I will speak first about the general objectives of this joint strategy and then about how it will be implemented. We clearly cannot define and implement an information and communication strategy for the European Union without the support and active participation of the Council, but also and in particular the Member States. This causes us to reflect for a moment, as Mr Bayona invites us to do, on the link between information and citizenship, in particular with a view to next year's elections.
For the Commission, the main objective of a proactive information and communication strategy has to be to improve the perception that the public has of the European Union: in essence, it should improve the public's awareness of the European dimension of their citizenship. The Commission therefore takes good note of the rapporteur's proposal to have an explicit reference in the text of the Constitution, which is currently being drafted, to the need for an information and communication policy as a condition for the exercise of European citizenship.
The Commission also fully supports your proposal that information distributed by the Union should highlight common European values, namely democracy, pluralism, security, solidarity, equal opportunities, cohesion and so on. The objective is indeed, Mr Bayona, to show citizens the practical advantages in their daily lives of belonging to the Union. With this in mind, as you yourself underline, the policy of distributing information in all of the Union's languages is something that we need to continue and build on further.
The visible expression of this citizenship should be active participation in the next European elections. There is no doubt that this decisive milestone in the democratic life of the Union should be our shared objective. It goes without saying that this alone provides ample justification for stepping up our interinstitutional cooperation. But is not the best way to encourage the public to turn out to vote to provide objective educational information to help them better to understand the major issues at stake in the project of European integration?
That is why we have agreed on four major information themes for 2003 to 2004 after the big campaign on the euro: enlargement, the future of the Union, the area of freedom, security and justice and the role of Europe in the world. Alongside other issues, in particular the social and economic agenda, these themes, especially enlargement and the future of the Union, are a priority concern today, particularly given that they are running on parallel timetables. They are therefore the best vectors for raising awareness amongst national public opinion of the importance of the major milestone in 2004.
On this subject, I should like here to give full reassurance to the House. The Commission will scrupulously respect the priorities adopted by the European Parliament at the vote on the budget and has no intention of modifying the balance – in terms of either the detail or the broader picture – of the Prince programme as adopted by the budgetary authority. Nevertheless, allow me to point out – and I do so entirely objectively – as I have done several times previously, that the doubling of the appropriations allocated to the Prince programme that was approved by this House for the 2003 Budget, is obviously going to raise some serious practical problems when it comes to implementation. The Commission would have appreciated being given advance warning of this state of affairs at a prior meeting with the competent authorities in Parliament, as befits the spirit of interinstitutional cooperation that should prevail in the running of the Prince programme.
As far as the practicalities of implementation are concerned, in response to the rapporteur's invitation requesting, with a view to the 2004 elections, an information campaign making particular use of television – it being understood that this campaign should be promoted and coordinated by the Commission – we have decided to launch a huge call for audiovisual proposals, which will cover both the theme of enlargement and that of the future of Europe. This integrated approach, which befits the complementary nature of these two subjects, will have a significant and renewed leverage effect for the audiovisual sector in Europe. The effect will be felt as much by the programme producers as by the audiovisual distributors and will enable us to reach the public more directly using their media of choice to find out more about the Union."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples