Public Relations and Public Diplomacy of the EU

Communicating (in) the foreign field European public diplomacy and communication policy on external action Eszter Karoliny PhD student [email protected] University of Pécs, Faculty of Law HUNGARY The European Union and the European Communities have always tried to provide information on their organisation, activities and goals to people both inside and outside their borders. Since 2005, and the failed referenda on the Constitutional Treaty, the EU institutions have recognised the need for a coherent communication policy towards the European citizens as one of the ways to ensure public support for and legitimacy of the European integration project. A significant portion of the information directed at the citizens is about the rapidly developing foreign policy of the EU. The foreign actions – the ‘EU in the world’ – are not only a very important, but also a rather complex subject to communicate to European citizens. Several aspects – e.g. enlargement – are sensitive themes, since the public opinion of the Member States’ citizens can directly influence the feasibility of the European Union’s plans. There is, however, another part of the communication policy that is just as important: the one directed towards the citizens of third countries. This external communication policy – or public diplomacy – complements and facilitates the various types of external actions of the European Union by making them more visible and understandable. This is important for different reasons in the various fields of foreign policy. In my paper, I endeavour to present the current external communication policy of the European Union in the third states it has contact with, and the communication on the external policy itself. As both common wisdom and recent experiences of the integration suggest, a policy is only worth as much as the people and organisations targeted by it know about it. A successful communication policy is therefore necessary for the external policies of the EU to function. Introduction – public relations and public diplomacy of the EU Notwithstanding the fact that the European Union and its predecessors have rightly been criticised for having a lacklustre foreign policy, today we can truthfully state that the external activities of the EU cover a major area, both from a geographic and a thematic point of view. From trade to development aid, crisis management or promoting human rights and democracy, as well as external, or externally linked actions in the environmental, energy, terrorism or freedom security and justice fields, the Union has an influence on a wide range of topics as well as in countries near and far from the European lands. The number of people whose lives are affected by EU actions has grown steadily in the last decades; so has the depth of the influence. Unfortunately, the level of familiarity with the EU and its politics did not follow this tendency: general knowledge is still lacking in most areas. This is not to say that European citizens have complete or even an adequate understanding of the workings of the Union: the information gap is definitely not restricted to outside the EU’s borders. Battling the “inside” lack of information as well as the missing routes for feedback, the ever- developing European Communication Policy consists of actions aimed at the European citizens, proposing to establish a two-way communication between them and the institutions of the EU, while giving them a right to information and to be heard. This policy, however, is a result of an organic development, where the important documents attempting to establish a coherent action in this area are relatively recent, and are building on the tools and means of information provision and feedback collection that came into existence at irregular intervals since the conception of the early Communities. To say today that the foreign policies and the communication policies of the EU do not meet, since one targets the external and the other the internal would be making a rather arguable statement. For on the one hand, the borders of the EU are far from finalised: although the era of big enlargements has passed, there are still several candidate countries for accession. On the other hand, notwithstanding the fact that public diplomacy is meant to target foreign audiences, the EU, in this matter, is in a very special position: it does not (and will not ever) constitute a homogeneous polity: in any given Member State, other members will be considered abroad1, participation in EU affairs regarded as foreign policy. As a last point, I would also argue that despite any differences established by scholars in political communication, several of the tools that are ultimately used in internal and external communication are very similar if not identical (especially the modern-day digital, Internet-based applications). 1. Communication policy inside the EU The first point to be made when talking about the European Communication Policy is that the European institutions, especially the European Commission, have since their earliest incarnations provided information on the functioning and activities of the Communities and later the Union. Parallel to this, both the Commission and the Parliament have semi-regularly issued documents that were usually aimed at creating a coherent approach to these information activities. The same can be said of communication, or more precisely, the possibilities available for the European citizens to directly influence EU policy. None of the documents, however, dealt with the use of the complete array of existing information / communication tools. In this article, I will mention both the most important tools for and documents about the information / communication policy, in a chronological order of appearance: as the most significant documents were drafted after the Maastricht Treaty, in the 1990s and later, the tools will be the first to be described. 1.1 Tools Media contacts, or a press and information service have existed in the EU since its earliest inceptions. The ECSC High Authority had a Spokesman’s Group / Press and Information Service from 1953, which later expanded to the Joint Press and Information Service of the three Communities. This service was responsible for the provision of both general information to the media and specialised information to different target groups; also for representing the Communities at fairs and exhibitions and for publications, visits and training. In 1967, the Directorate-General for Press and Information (DG X) was created, and has existed ever since with its name changing periodically2 (since 2005, DG Communication; in the second Barroso Commission, under the authority of Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. Interestingly enough, the Commissioner for Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration also plays a role in some aspects of the Communication Policy). The newest generation of the media services include the Audiovisual Service, the Europe by Satellite television service, daily press conferences, an online press room and the RAPID news database, 1 Wallström, Margot: Public diplomacy and its role in the EU’s external relations. Speech given at Mortara Center for International Studies, Georgetown University Washington DC, 2 October 2008 2 Dumoulin, Michael: What information policy? in: European Commission: The European Commission, 1958-72 – History and memories. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 2007. 507-532 free-of-charge technical facilities. In addition to this, the separate DGs, the European Parliament3 and the Council4 also have press services, information officers and spokespersons. In all Member States and, in the case of larger countries, significant regions, the European Commission operates Representations, which fulfil the role approximating to that of a foreign embassy. (This role is even more pronounced in the case of Delegations functioning in third countries.) The European Parliament also has established a network of information offices (altogether 33)5. The role of the Representations includes provision of information on the national or regional level, in various forms and methods (press contacts, organisation of events, publishing, etc.) but experience shows that information is required – and best provided – locally. For various purposes, therefore, several information networks were established by the European Commission in general and various DGs in particular. The first, in 1963, was the European Documentation Centres network, aimed at providing information and resources to research and education conducted at universities. Other general networks include Team Europe, consisting of expert speakers, and the Europe Direct relay, which developed from Info Points Europe and Rural Information and Promotion Carrefours, but also includes a toll-free telephone and e-mail answer service, and has the goal of informing the general public. Specialised networks and relays are almost impossible to list, especially because in addition to the ones founded by the DGs, several Member States established their own with or without aid from the EU. These are almost always related to a certain policy of the EU and endeavour to ensure that European citizens have access to all their rights stemming from Community legislation. Most networks and relays receive support from the Commission in being supplied with publications, opportunities for training and sometimes direct financial assistance. Although operating

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