I’m honoured to work at this project, and I want to invest myself to make it bigger, nicer, and more powerful. It is a lab of experimentation and creativity, as it tests the potential (and pushes the limits) of institutional communication. Nowhere else, as far as I know, there is a community from so many different countries discussing political issues among them.  I was literally touched by the post on Thailand, when we talked about the riots in Bangkok. Some Thai people commented on it and many, many Europeans expressed them their solidarity and their sorrow, but also discussed the political situation there.

With over 76.000 fans, each post seen at least 100.000 times, and over 1.000 interactions per week, I think we shouldn’t be shy and say that this is one of the most successful experiences of communication on EU affairs ever.

Football time: the genius of Fred "en jouant avec son 'toshop"

Positive feed-back

In fact, we don’t need to auto celebrate ourselves, because we have a lot of positive feed-back, from inside and outside the House.

The other EU Institutions consider us frontrunners, and want to exchange experiences. The last example: a communication officer from EuropeAid at the Commission said he is “a big fan of the Facebook editorial team of the Parliament” and he would like to share with us some best practices.

After the chat with Heidi Hautala on human rights on Facebook, her assistant wrote to me that the results were “very impressive” and that the MEP “was very happy to participate and would do it again for sure :)”, encouraging us to “continue the excellent work!”.

FB fans appreciate our work, and they expressed it many times. Just over the last week, Marcello Toni thanked us for organising the chats, Tremopoulos Michalis encouraged us to “keep up the good work!!”and Mark Valdam said he likes “funny organisations like the EP :-))”.
…and some secrets to reveal
So far so good. Of course we can do much better, and I’ll write another post on what we can and should do in the future. For the time being, just two little confessions.
1) It is a serious thing – When “the pillar” left, I didn’t sleep for one week. I was given more or less informally the responsibility of coordinating the magic Facebook team, and this gave me a good dose of stress. The page took off and grew thanks – among others – to the creativity, restless effort and “geekiness” of Christian. I don’t know if I can keep up, but I will do all my best because I believe that this communication platform has a great potential to get Europe a little bit closer to citizens, but also to get citizens closer to European decision makers, and maybe most important, to get Europeans closer to each other.
2) But you don’t have to take yourself (and the others) too seriously. Do you know how the best posts that we publish see the light? Normally we exchange tonnes of emails, and at some point somebody comes up with a funny, sometimes hilarious email, that the others – crazily enough – take seriously. And then it goes on Facebook and gets a lot of comments and “likes”: the magic of Facebook!

For me, the important thing is to keep this spirit alive and…enjoy your work!

As a student of Journalism and afterwards as a student of Political Science, I could pretty much write whatever I wanted. I could choose my own subject; sometimes “play” with it a bit and often include my own opinion in it… Working for an EU institution requires much more prudence.

Basically here’s how it works. Every article published by the editors should be non-biased, well-balanced and especially not include any non-relevant opinion whatsoever. Isn’t this boring and non-challenging work? Especially for someone who has worked as a “real” journalist?

“You cannot ask someone to be creative on command” a friend once told me

It’s true that I have even written some columns back in the School of Journalism as an editor-in-chief of the local newspaper. I was also involved in setting up a sports website and wrote some columns for them as well. Creative writing is pleasant; however it can be quite complicated as well. Being creative namely is something that sometimes is not so obvious.

A friend of mine is a year older than me but still studying. Yes, some call him the eternal student. Out of the three (!) studies he didn’t finish – he’s supposed to finally finish another one soon – one includes engineering. When I asked him at the time why he quit this study, he told me “you cannot ask someone to be creative on command”. A rather philosophical phrase indeed, but it has plenty of valour I’d say.

Being creative can be difficult, especially when it has been a long time since you’ve written something creative. Basically this is what I noticed when I was asked to write this piece (yes, I’m also the guy who still hasn’t written an own description of himself under “The team”).

So did they deprive me from all my creativity in writing ever since I took up this job? No, fortunately not. We can be creative in our own way. The way we construct our articles requires choices, choices which demand your creativity. So we should definitely not complain, especially since this team consists of plenty of creative minds. It sometimes makes you wonder: how do they do it?

Many people are hoping that question time at 3 pm this afternoon will deliver a lively and memorable debate when Members bowl questions at Commission President José Manuel Barroso. To move things along and prevent waffle they are limited to 1 minute – for the question and response.

EC President Barroso will face MEPs for a Q & A this afternoon

Questions on any subject will come from the political group leaders for the first 30 minutes followed by questions on the economic and financial crisis from any MEP who catches the eye of the Speaker.

Whether it will develop into a UK House of Commons style question time with a full House and plenty of drama remains to be seen. Probably not, as every parliament has its own particular style and culture.

It will also be a first for the Web Communication Unit as we attempt to follow the debate on twitter – come and see how we get on.  Join us on Europarl_EN

Politics: ‘a male-dominated world’

On my way to work this campaign caught my eye: A photo of a man and a woman and the question: “Is your work valued the same?” Yes I like to think so. And that as woman I have the same career opportunities as a man. But statistics gives another picture.

Women in Europe are paid 17% less than men. There is under representation of women in leading positions, in the board rooms, in politics, and inequalities often prevails in work and family life in general.

Just look at today’s (6 March) visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the EP. She attracted a huge interest, could any European do the same? 

For the European election campaign we were discussing ways to illustrate gender equality acheivements over the last 30 years. One idea was a photo from 1979 and one from 2009. We tried to think of current women in politics well known all over EU. Margot Wallström, and …? Not many other names came up. Famous faces we realised are often American.

Just look at today’s (6 March) visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the EP. She attracted a huge interest, could any European do the same? 

A European West Wing

EP Vice-President Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou made reference to a fresh Eurobarometer survey in an EP seminar this week: “83% of women and 76% of men agree that women can bring a different perspective to politics”. The survey also shows that women are less interested in European politics than men.

How can women’s interest and participation be boosted? I think more inspiring female politicians, leaders are crucial. Off course we real life “role models”. But imagine also the impact of TV-series? I really liked the (American) “West Wing” … Couldn’t something similar, set in Brussels, boost interest and participation? A European West Wing (“Place Luxembourg” ), with a female President Bartlet …

Just some thoughts ahead of Sunday’s International Women’s Day.  Any other ideas on how to promote women in politics?