Posts filed under ‘Council’
Website in “average shape” as France takes over
Today is significant. Firstly, it’s 30 degree sunshine in Brussels, and secondly it’s the first day of the French Presidency of the EU. Bonjour.
As a shameful Anglophone, I’ll be dusting down the pocket dictionary, practicing my rolled Rs, and getting ready for six months of unmitigated Frenchness. And hurrah for it, as an initial look at the French Presidency’s website reveals our “citizen-orientated” Presidency is taking its digital communications seriously.
So often EU presidency websites have been about as exciting as the Solvency II proposal (apologies to our Financial Services team, who are all very special). However, it looks like Sarko and co have decided to raise the bar. Here’s how:
PFUE TV: the inspirationally-named PFUE TV (there was apparently a huge debate about whether or not to include the “P” and the “E” 
) is the most striking addition to the usual presidency stoge. The channel has, at the moment, limited content and is horrendously slow to load - let’s hope that something more dynamic than speeches by Fillon and Kouchner will be added over the next six months (more Carla Bruni please!).
EVENTS MAP: the French events map is a cool idea and uses Google Earth to identify events taking place in France over the next six months. Nice thinking.
CALENDAR TEST: As a public affairs professional it tends to drive me insane when I cannot easily access Council meeting documents. So I’m going to try it now…and I’ve failed; well I tried to get info on the ECOFIN Council next week, and there’s no agenda there yet. I guess it is still early so the jury’s out on that one.
WEATHER: I’ve noticed other Presidency sites have done this, but who in their right mind goes to an EU Presidency website to check the weather. I’d say that there’s a huge cloud gathering over Lisbon following the recent storm in Ireland…(oh dear)
Other thoughts on the French Presidency from our colleagues in Paris are more than welcome…
Alex is no fool: one less MEP is no joke for EU blogosphere
Image from WikipediaThis morning saw a raft of April’s fools announcement, a French federalist blogger broke the “story” of the resignation of Barroso from the Commission while the environmental news service ENDS Daily reported that an MEP had called for personal methane trading. Alas, both are hot air.
One that apparently isn’t is the story that Finnish EPP member Alexander Stubb MEP is to appointed Foreign minister of his native Finland. Well done to Alex. However, with MEP bloggers thin on the ground, Alex’s website and blog stand out as quality and will be sorely missed. The Parliament will also lose a good and dedicated member.
Let’s hope that Alexander keeps the blog up in his new position. (incidentally, we noted he’d been quiet recently, probably with good reason). And for other MEPs, who knows, perhaps they will note Alex’s online activities and come to the conclusion that it may not be a bad way to raise their own profile. With a bit luck, the next time a capital rings it could be for you.
Use of blogs by Brussels trade associations triples!
An interesting survey from the folks at Euractiv on the use of the internet by European trade associations was released late last week. While we weren’t present at the launch event, we are happy to note that FH was represented at least in spirit by Sylvain Lhote (who spent 8 years with us before moving to plastics company Borealis).
As with all these things, the survey’s sponsors have sought as far as possible to draw the conclusions they are looking for from the results. One example is the ‘fact’ that the proactive use of blogs by European trade association has tripled in the last 12 months (from 3 to 9 percent!). Speaking to a member of Euractiv’s blogactiv team recently, it seems that this reflects the issues that they have been in getting trade associations to go past the stage of initial interest to actually signing up to write regular and interesting blog content on their platform. As we know all too well, blogging can take a significant time investment. If this investment was stated up front it could put the frighteners on many of those who pay the bills (thankfully in our case FH CEO Dave Senay has a healthy enthusiasm for all things digital).
There of course could be other factors at play in the lack of proactive use of blogging by Brussels based associations. A natural inclination to rounds of necessary consultation and the lowest common denominator does not bode well for fast paced reactions in blog format. Nor does an tendency to focus on ‘the issues’ for the association and its members in an already hectic workload. For an association’s blog to build reputation is a long term process and one where the organisation will have to share expertise on a subject of interest to the policymaker (e.g. how best to communicate on chemicals to consumers) rather than the position of the association on a particular dossier (e.g. why labelling our chemical in the current legislation won’t move consumers). One blog post that’s a (hopefully shorter) rewrite of your position paper just won’t do.
In any case, despite the disclaimer about the research not being scientific, it also underlines a few other interesting ‘facts’. One on one meetings are seen to be the best way to get your message across; not surprising given the fact that this is a government relations town and there is a limited number of policymakers likely to be interested in any one issue. This is closely followed by a good website. Media work comes somewhat further down the list, perhaps reflecting the fragmented nature of the Brussels press corps.
On the institution’s communications, associations do not frequent the Council’s website as often as the Parliament or Commission’s; not surprising as a little bit like the Council as an institution, it is designed to confuse and obsfucate…Underlying a longstanding view that if one wanted to tackle transparency in the EU, one would start with the Council’s website.
From one seat to one president – a new digital dawn in Brussels?
Hats off to Brussels bloggers Jon Worth and Jan Seifert as they embark on a new Brussels digital campaign called “Who do I call?“. Their aim is simple. They think that the Commission President and newly created President of the European Council should be the one and same person.
While we still remain to be convinced about the merits of the case, we do admire the team’s online efforts. (Admittedly as some of us have yet to really think about it – this thinking usual happens when we should be relaxing). You can support in a number of ways from a simple signing of their petition, signing up on Facebook, putting the banner on your site to translating their copy into another language. The choice is yours. For the first time we have seen in an EU based campaign, the guys are using many of the tools out there to take visitors through all of the stages of online activist engagement, with the exception of getting people to take their activity offline…
As Jon readily admits, the challenge will be to see whether their own (formidable) online and offline networks will draw enough support to the campaign centre. Unlike the one seat campaign and the 1million4disability, they do not currently have the kind of ready made organisational support of traditional NGO grassroots campaigns. It’s an interestingly experiment to see whether a European campaign can start online and migrate offline as attention builds. Clearly however, the team is already using its online contacts to spread the word and is actively looking at networks they are already part of to join the cause (hence this blog post). More posts in Facebook groups and a guest appearance on Blogactiv’s ideas page are perhaps in order in the coming days.
BTW – it’s great to see best practice blogger relations techniques being used here in Brussels. It’s just a pity that this time around we are the subject of the blogger relations, rather than the ones undertaking it!
