One small step...or an impossible leap?

I promise, I really promise, my dear reader, that I did seriously try to stop criticising the institutions and their ability to communicate visually - well, if not stop, at least make the criticism less frequent. Some friends have said to me: 'What if one day you want to work for the EU on communications? If you keep on talking badly about them, you will only have enemies there!' Maybe they are right, I should think about that. Actually no. The communications jobs in the institutions - if one excludes the spokespersons service - are for EU officials only. Whether I criticise or not.

No, the reason I tried to be less critical was that I thought you, my dear reader, would be bored with it. I think I made my point on a number of occasions and now I should move on. Sharing interesting and successful campaigns was part of this moving on exercise.

But it seems that you, my dear reader, are not bored with it, because I regularly receive suggestions and  get sent links to videos that come out of the institutions. Videos that I cannot avoid commenting on. I try to, but when I see them, suddenly my eyes become watery, my muscles (both of them) tense up and a flow of thoughts gets into my head; this flow needs, I really mean needs, to be let out on paper, well, on screen, if I want to continue my day peacefully. Do I sound exaggerated? Ok, I am a bit, but wait you see this.

It was sent to me by someone that regularly produces videos - 'For a Commissioner in charge of energy, Oettinger really needs to boost his energy levels!' he wrote in his email. Well, that is the least one can say about the video message by the energy Commissioner introducing 'Sustainable Energy Week 2013 - One small step from you, one giant leap for Europe' -



Leaving aside the cheesy tagline, the ten seconds jingle is nice, but who has seriously been able to watch through all the other 94 seconds?

One small step from you, Commissioner Oettinger, and this video could have been quite different.
Last year Commissioner Potočnik did a great one with a similar purpose - introducing Green Week. As I said at the time, that video worked because it was shot outside, because the Commissioner inter-acted with his surroundings, because he had learned his lines by heart and hence delivered them more naturally and because it was directed and edited in a catchy way. So you would think it would be success to emulate. But it was not - not even for Green Week this year, may I add. Was it considered too extravagant or was the Environment Commissioner smiling too much?

One small step outside the Berlaymont, Commissioner Oettinger, maybe in a 'sustainable' environment - and the message would have sounded more credible.

One small step from your communications people, Commissioner Oettinger, and they might have suggested a different format to make it more interesting. Or maybe they have, but have not been listened to.

The voice, the background, and the constant zooming in and out that makes you sea-sick, do I really need to comment? A giant leap for Europe? Feels more like an impossible one! Let me stop here - I got it out of my system and so can continue my normal life!

Seriously, what drive me nuts, as usual, is that the question is not the lack of ability; there are plenty of capable communications people in the institutions - and many of them, by the way, are just as frustrated as I am at the difficulty of getting the message across. No, the question is the lack of willingness to spend time on it (not money, time), to listen to new ideas, to implement proper communications strategies; all this because communications, despite what people might say, is not a priority.

Will a European Parliament filled with Eurosceptics make it a priority? A fool too late bewares when all the peril is past, a famous queen once said, not me.

My blog, David Cameron and a self-destruction button

If you type the word 'European' in the Facebook search box, the first result is the "European Parliament", followed by....."European Pornstars" (obviously very sought after! Quite relieved though that it is not the other way round!) and then by "Europeans against the Political System" (good luck to them, I say)! It could not have been a more disparate mix.

If your search is a bit more specific and, let's say, you are trying to assess the number of groups, associations, blogs, movements, publications dealing with Europe - with the EU directly but also with issues that would interest the "European Public" - you are likely to find a myriad of different results, and you might soon get lost and probably give up.

There are kind souls attempting to give some sort of order and to structure this huge amount of European material.

Blogs such as mine, for example, (i.e. blogs that talk about the EU, in all its facets, or that are written by European officials and by journalists based in Brussels) are all (probably not all actually!) collected in a BIG web portal (bloggingportal.eu). Do you know how many they have so far? 1033!!!!! Granted, not all of them are still active but, my Goodness, more than one thousand blogs talking about EU politics? How is anyone supposed to select what to read or have a clue of what to look for? To be fair, the portal does divide the blogs in different categories, to make it easier to find the one/s you might be interested in, but still....1033?

Of course if you are fascinated by all that is European, reading all the new posts on this web portal every morning must be marvellous; but this is, as usual, the problem. If you are NOT fascinated, if you are a bit wary, bordering sceptic; if you just don't know much and want to know more; if you actually are not that interested but would read something if it were  interesting, well written and you stumbled upon it; then, would you go through this immense portal - if (and that is a big if) you had found it - to see what is on offer?

I know that by saying it looks as if I were, how can I put it?, pushing some sort of 'self-destruction' button: the fact of the matter is that this portal contains a lot of good stuff - little moment of self publicity before the self-destruction: 'OBVIOUSLY THIS INCLUDES MY BLOG!' ok, done - but the sheer volume of content is simply frightening and will inevitably put people off.

On the other hand, I tell myself that this represents a small vignette of what the Net is all about; if you let yourself be scared by the size of the content, you will never use it at all and what a great loss that would be. So I guess the answer - I have only mentioned blogs but this applies to all the different formats of 'European' material - is not to give up, but to learn selecting (another self publicity moment - read sentence in capital letters above!), which is exactly what everyone of us does online every day.

Talking of selection and self-destruction, as we are approaching the long awaited speech on Europe by the UK Prime Minister Cameron - as I write, there has been a new postponement so who knows when he will actually deliver it! -  here is a Taiwanese animated take on it, that I have selected for you! European policy like Tantric Sex? Baby Clegg! Need I say more? Enjoy. I will postpone self-destruction for a while, what do you think?
 

The EU and the Nobel Peace Prize: enough celebration?

Next Monday, a good number of European leaders and the heads of the three European institutions will be in Oslo the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, awarded this year to the European Union. (Little parenthesis: the UK Prime Minister has made it very clear he does not want to go and will not go. Fine, but can someone please remind me - and them actually - why they joined in the first place?).
One might question the timing of such decision and, as for most Peace Prizes awarded in past years, agree or not with the reasons behind it. In this case, and not surprisingly, the debate has been tougher than usual. Just do a quick Google search and you will find a sea of comments of all types, well, really of all types?

And here is why I am talking about it: I was very happy with the decision. Not ideal perhaps in terms of timing - this year of all years?- but certainly I agreed with the motivation ("for over six decades the EU contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe"). But, by looking online, it looks like I am pretty much the only one - ok exaggeration for effect! But I did a search on YouTube (EU and Nobel Peace Prize) and the results were dire. A lot of news items from different TV channels, most of which had interviews with people deeply critical of the decision; individuals - and a lot of North Americans puzzlingly- just filming themselves arguing against it; videos with scenes of riots in Athens and Madrid coupled with Nazi Germany shots with the European anthem (Ode to Joy) as the soundtrack; videos proposing alternative winners and videos making fun of the Nobel Committee; do I need to go on? I wanted to put the link to some of these videos but frankly, some of them do not really deserve to have more views, so go and look for them yourself!

I remember seeing the remarks of Barroso, Van Rompuy and the European Parliament President Schultz when they first heard the news and it took me quite some time to find those clips again. But anyway, talking heads with quite predictable comments. Where could I find the EU really making something of this prize for its own image, history, reputation and future? I did not want to give up; and eventually on the EUTube channel (couldn't it come up with a regular YouTube search?), I found this video - produced by the European Council:

  

A good video; a bit too long maybe, but surely something that shows the intentions and real motives behind the European idea using the voices -  at times quite moving - of the main protagonists, starting with Winston Churchill (yes, a Brit!) and the people of today. This is what needs to be communicated and showed over and over again!

There is one more initiative that I think deserves to be mentioned in relation to the EU, the Nobel Peace Prize and good use of communication tools : the Youth Contest "Peace, Europe, Future", a drawing and writing contest for 8-24 year olds (answering the question: what does peace in Europe mean for you?) organised by the EU institutions, in partnership with the European Youth Forum. The four winners - three selected by a jury and the last by a Facebook vote- will be part of the official delegation travelling to Oslo - and probably more deservedly than some of the hundreds going! 5400 young Europeans have taken part. Has it been advertised in schools? Maybe there would have been more participants. Anyway, looking at what the winners - and not only them -  have written and drawn, the striking thing is how peace in Europe is considered yes, a given, but "like air", something you cannot see but can't live without either. Call me an idealist, but I am longing for this view to be shared by the majority of young people across Europe. And I do love the 'mechanical' drawing of the 12 year old winner!

So, Herman and Janez, ready for the Oscar?

I promised myself that if I saw well produced (if not necessarily viral!) EU videos I would post them on my blog, not to be accused of always being too critical or polemical...  well, here are two examples. The first video was produced recently by the Council (main protagonist: Herman van Rompuy, but don't let this scare you!), describing the frantic preparations ahead of and during a European Council Summit in Brussels (brief positive parenthesis: the fact that the video talks about the March Council summit and that it has been posted on Youtube at the beginning of May is not bad; well, coming from television news, it seems an eternity but for a documentary, not bad at all). The other comes out of the Commission (main, and only protagonist - if you exclude some ducks-: Janez Potočnik, but same as above!)and it was the opening video at this year's Green Week conference on water issues. Well done (a bit too long the Summit one, but with a good pace), clear message, relatively
entertaining (and I say relatively as a disclaimer, as they are obviously not made for entertainment but for information purposes). They both convey the importance of what is being described but in a light way, light in terms of visuals (Green week),or in term of script (Summit). I was told one evening that the Commission has been trying to assess the number of videos that it has produced over the years and they are still counting.  Well, maybe fewer but good ones such as these would be a responsible and effective strategy from now on.

Here they are: