One of the basic difficulties in any discussion of "citizenship" is being clear what we mean by that term. All the more so when we use phrases like "active citizenship" – and especially when we
add the word "European"! Nationals of Switzerland or Serbia are European citizens but not citizens of the European Union. My neighbour who plays a lot of tennis, goes cycling, walks the dog and
raises three children is a very active person: but does that make her an "active citizen"? Let's be careful how we use words.

One definition of an "active citizen" might be someone who takes an interest in public affairs, is active in their local community, publicly expresses their views and influences the political process. That could describe Ahmed, a teenager living in Clichy-sous-Bois. He and dozens like him were very active in their local community in autumn 2005. They expressed their views very clearly by torching cars in the street, thus influencing the outcome of this year's presidential elections in France. But Ahmed – unemployed and facing a lifetime of racial discrimination – probably doesn't feel his citizenship
(French or European) means very much.

That example illustrates the urgent need for policies to help integrate young people,  especially those from immigrant communities, into mainstream society and its democratic life. The process has
to start with giving them a decent education and real jobs. But it has to go beyond that – which is why we have programmes, at national and European level, to encourage people to become "active citizens".

However, if we are to design such programmes effectively and measure their success accurately, we need to know what we're aiming at. What, for example, is the European Commission aiming at in its programmes to promote “active European citizenship”?

Commission programmes to promote ‘active European citizenship’

The ‘Citizens for Europe’ and ‘Youth in Action’ programmes (2007-2013) aim to bring together people from different countries so they can develop mutual understanding, solidarity and appreciation
of their cultural diversity. No-one, I think, could object to that.

More controversial, no doubt, is the aim of giving people a sense of "belonging to Europe" and stimulating them to become actively involved in constructing an "ever closer Europe". This is an overtly integrationist agenda, and eurosceptics will complain that we are spending public money on a form of political propaganda. I'll return to that issue later.

Developing understanding and solidarity – or at least tolerance – between people is always good for society; but they are passive qualities. To quote an earlier CINEFOGO newsletter: "Being tolerant is surely a quality of a good citizen but its not exactly active citizenship".

In what sense, then, is the Commission encouraging "active citizenship"? In the case of the ‘Youth in Action’ programme, we are encouraging young people to get involved in volunteering – spending some of their free time working on social, environmental or development projects.

But beyond that we want people (of all ages) to become more politically active citizens of the European Union. To quote again your previous newsletters, "most of us are spectators and consumers of professional politics"; but "in many countries, people have lost their trust in politicians, political parties, central institutions or the political game…"

As a result, fewer and fewer people are taking part in elections or joining political parties, trades unions and NGOs. However, these trends may reflect not so much a growth in public apathy as the
growth in internet use, especially by young people. For many people, the World Wide Web has become the 'market square' of the global village, and it is here that many citizens now like to 'meet' to discuss the issues of the day and to organize political activities.

They are surely 'active citizens'. But internet activism cannot be a substitute for representative democracy or for the institutional framework of EU decisionmaking. The Commission very much
favours public policy debates online, but we want these debates to motivate people to turn out and vote in local, national and European elections.

European Union citizens’ rights

Another aim of EU programmes like ‘Citizens for Europe’ and ‘Youth in Action’ is to make people more aware of their fundamental rights as citizens of the European Union. For example, the right
to live, study and work in another EU country. At present, relatively few EU partly due to lack of awareness. There are other reasons too. Many people who consider moving to another European
country are put off by language barriers, administrative hassles and difficulties in accessing information.

The Commission is concerned about this and is taking action to help change the situation. We have, for example, set up a one-stop-shop internet portal (the “Your Europe” portal http://europa.eu.int/youreurope) where a wide range of information and advice is available to help EU citizens exercise their rights in the internal market.

But I believe EU citizens have other rights too. For example, the right to know what the European Union is doing and deciding, and why. The right to hear the full range of views
about European issues and the right for citizens to make their own views heard in dialogue with European policy-makers.

To me these are basic democratic rights: but at present seven out of ten EU citizens know little or nothing about what the European Union is or does. It hardly features in school curricula. The national media report European issues from a national – or even nationalistic – viewpoint. There are very few trans-national forums in which European issues can be discussed by the citizens of different countries.

A European public sphere?

In short, we lack a European public sphere in which citizens can communicate with one another and a European demos can evolve. The need for such a sphere is the central theme of the European Commission's White Paper on a European Communication Policy, published in February 2006.

In this paper we pointed out that the task of creating a European public sphere is well beyond the capacity of the European Commission itself – or indeed of any single institution. It will require concerted action by all the EU institutions, national governments, regional and local authorities, as well as civil society and the media.

But what action should we take, exactly? And how can we do the job together? The White Paper invited all stakeholders, and the general public, to post their views on our consultation
website. By the end of last September we had received around 700 responses. We then held a series of stakeholder conferences, bringing together not only the EU institutions and national governments but also hundreds of representatives of the media, of NGOs and citizens' associations.

On the basis of this very extensive consultation exercise the Commission will, this summer, put forward plans for introducing a European Union policy or Community programme on communication. The aim will be to empower citizens by giving them the tools for democracy to which they are entitled: complete and accurate information; forums and meeting-places for debate; channels for dialogue with European decisionmakers.

A vision of the public sphere in action

What might this mean in practice? Here is my own vision of the ideal situation.

It starts in school, where young people will learn the basic facts about the EU as part of their civic education curriculum. At the same time, the media – everything from the national daily newspapers to local radio – will keep us regularly informed about what is being discussed and decided in Brussels and Strasbourg. We will be able to go to the internet, or to our local public library, to find out more background and more detail on these issues.

We will be able to attend regular public meetings in our town hall or local school where local politicians, environmental activists, consumer representatives, trade unionists and business people will discuss how EU policies affect life in our local community.

Nation-wide and trans-national discussions of the same issues (ideally in more than one language) will be possible on the Internet, thanks to websites set up by associations of NGOs. These ongoing, online forums will be backed up by debates on regional and national TV and by international conferences where we can discuss the hot topics with other European citizens, EU officials and MEPs.

The European Commission will monitor these debates, and it will conduct opinion polls and focus group discussions to get an overview of European public opinion. The 'Europe Direct' networks and contact centre will also help the Commission to identify the issues of greatest concern to citizens. The results of this "listening" exercise will feed directly into the process of formulating EU policies.
European political parties will also be permanently taking part in this public debate. When the time comes for  elections to the European Parliament, these parties will clearly present their positions on the key issues and thus give citizens a real choice between live options. This will motivate many people to turn out and vote, and that in turn will give greater democratic legitimacy to European
institutional decision-making.

How to make the vision a reality?

This, as I say, is the ideal situation. But making it happen will be far from easy. How does one get 27 national governments to agree a common agenda for EU-related education and public information? How does one get the media to commit to reporting EU affairs regularly and objectively? Can one even get the EU institutions to speak with one voice and avoid duplicating each other's communication efforts? It's not at all obvious.

Each national government has a particular political colour and its own policy agenda. It is also very much focused on getting re-elected, which will often mean claiming the credit for European policies that prove popular and blaming "Brussels" for the unpopular ones.

The media insist on their freedom and independence – even if in reality some newspapers and TV channels are owned by politicians or tycoons with their own political agenda. Broadcasters and journalists are very suspicious of any suggestion that they should work more closely with the EU institutions. They will only report what they consider newsworthy, and they will spin it in the way their editor decides, so citizens cannot expect to get the whole picture from any one source.

Communication, civil society and democracy

What about civil society? What role can NGOs play in European Communication Policy? Obviously, they have well-established communication networks through which views and information can flow back and forth between citizens and policy-makers. NGOs also do an important job monitoring the way EU policies are put into action and they provide useful feedback to the EU institutions. But what more could they do?

I would love to see NGOs linking up with one another across Europe to run online trans-national discussion forums. Are they likely to do so? The willingness is there, but obviously NGOs have widely different interests and sometimes competing agendas, and are reluctant to commit their slender resources to common ventures. Individual NGOs might agree to be part of a European Communication Policy – provided the Commission can give them substantial financial support. But the Commission's resources are limited too.

Previous CINEFOGO newsletters have raised very pertinent questions about the relationship between civil society and the EU institutions, and more generally about EU Communication Policy. I would like briefly to respond to two of those questions.

First, how would a future European Communication Policy – with its focus on a decentralized dialogue with all citizens – relate to the existing centralized dialogue between the Commission and organized civil society groups? Would the former replace the latter? No, that is not at all my intention. I see the two approaches as complementary, not mutually exclusive. Our existing system of consultation with selected NGOs will continue – though it may need improvement to ensure that the NGOs we consult are as representative as possible of citizens' interests and concerns. But that is a separate issue.

Second, is European Communication Policy an effort to popularize the EU or to legitimize the European integration process? Yes, if popularization means making EU policies more understandable and accessible to the citizens. No if it means spoon-feeding the citizen with pre-cooked and ready-made solutions for the future of Europe. European Communication Policy is about stimulating a healthy debate in which the citizen can compare different views: pro- and anti-integration views; views for and against specific EU policies; the views of all political parties and of the European Commission, whose job is to foster the common European interest. Moreover, in any EU country citizens should be able to hear the views of people from the other EU countries. In short, it should be a genuinely open-ended trans-national conversation.

Communication Policy is therefore not about legitimizing the status quo or any particular view of Europe's future: it is about dialogue, debate and democracy. In this way it complements the "active citizenship" programmes I mentioned earlier.

When will our proposed Communication Policy become reality? This summer the Commission will publish a new policy document proposing a range of measures that it is prepared to take – jointly with other EU institutions, with governments and with civil society. The emphasis will be on setting up practical working partnerships. Our document will put forward an agenda or programme for concerted action on communication. We would not presume to tell any of our partners what to do, but we can and will make concrete suggestions for doing the job together.

Enabling citizens to set the agenda

Let me close by giving just one example of how the European Commission and civil society are already working together to put communication at the service of democracy. Last autumn we helped
a group of civil society organisations launch a major project called the "European Citizens' Consultations". This is a series of simultaneous debates between citizens in every EU country, spread over a period of several months. In all 27 countries, the discussions focus on a small number of key European issues selected at the outset by agreement between delegates from the countries concerned. The people involved in the national debates are randomly selected, so they are of all ages, come from all walks of life and represent the entire spectrum of public opinion.

The outcomes of the national debates are now being put together in an overall synthesis report, and the Commission will ensure that its recommendations are put to the European Council in June.

Exercises of this kind are an excellent way of consulting citizens who are not part of organised civil society, and I would like to see them become a regular – perhaps annual – part of our overall communication programme. They should certainly provide input into the European Commission's policy-making work, alongside the other consultations we carry out with NGOs, experts, the social partners, etc.

The rationale is simple: the EU exists for its citizens and it is they who must be enabled and encouraged, in many different ways, to set the European agenda.