Would this girl prefer soft ice to a treaty?

We finally got it, beginning November. The last of the many hurdles was surmounted when Czech President Klaus, a vehement opponent of the new treaty, finally gave in and signed it. It was a long and winding road: nearly a decade of negotiations, a draft Constitution rejected by a French “non” and a Dutch “nee”, a plan B, a plan D, two Irish referendums, one “no”, talks and more talks, little touches here and there, some concessions, another “yes”… and we’re finally there. Intended to take effect in January 2009, Lisbon is coming into force close to a year later, on December 1.

Looking back, I ask myself, how come Lisbon’s been such a bitter pill to swallow? After all, the reform treaty was all along meant to streamline and modernise the EU machinery, making it more able to act and deliver – in a time when Europe and the rest of the world are faced with new challenges like globalisation, climate change, energy security and terrorism – and no single state can effectively deal with them alone.

“We-know-best”?

After the “no-nos”, Europe’s been dealing with its history’s biggest political damage-control exercise. It’s been about democracy, dialogue and debate. It’s been about a totally new focus on communicating EU to its citizens, and it’s been about giving birth to us. But did the EU, its Parliament, manage to convince the 500 million Europeans in the 27 member states that this is for their own good, and that the sky is not falling?

I’m afraid we didn’t quite make it. I’m afraid the man and the woman of the street still think of us as the distant Brussels elite, bureaucrats and politicians pushing for things they don’t need nor want, or might even fear – with a top-down authoritarian tendency: “we-know-best”. I’m afraid the way the new treaty was pushed through – let alone the recent name game on the appointment of the new top dogs – has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Europeans. Lisbon is not an easy sell as an exercise in greater democracy.

EP 2.0 in the making

Yet both Europe and the rest of the world have changed since the EU laid its foundations some 50 years ago. Something has to be done to make it function better, no? I myself am not suffering from high F-fever. But if we’re here to work together for common goals, I sure wish to have the best possible means for it. And, then again, no tool is of course ever going to suffice if the will to use it is missing.

We in the “EU bubble” believe it is only by working together, in a more efficient, accountable, transparent and coherent way and speaking with one voice that Europe can respond to its citizens’ major concerns…

On that treaty paper, signed by EU presidents and prime ministers in Lisbon just about two years ago, we have a new European Parliament with more power and more responsibility in shaping Europe than ever before. On paper, we have more democracy, both representative and direct, we have more efficiency, more transparency, more accountability, and we have a whole new binding catalogue of civil, political, economic and social rights – the Charter of Fundamental Rights – for Europe’s citizens. The reform treaty makes the EU and its Parliament better equipped for today’s and tomorrow’s challenges – also in view of future enlargements. We need it.

What the EU, its Parliament and the MEPs will make out of Lisbon remains of course to be seen. But we got it, and we now have to sell it: the new treaty, and, in particular, the new Parliament. Both to the media and to the citizens.

We have a story…

The story is there. In the institutional power game, your Parliament is a winner, once more. Its powers have increased with every successive change of EU treaties, Lisbon being the latest and so far the highest step. With Lisbon, your Parliament becomes a truly equal lawmaker with the member states’ Council of Ministers. And it will also have a tighter hold on EU’s purse strings: from now on, it will decide on the entire EU budget together with the Council. Further, in the Lisbon era, your Parliament will not only decide what is done and how money is spent, but it will also have a greater say on which men and women run the EU.

New power means more responsibility. As the only directly-elected EU institution, the Parliament will have new tools to give a stronger voice to the half a billion citizens it represents and to hold the EU accountable to them. It will be the guardian of EU citizens’ new catalogue of rights, as well as their new right of asking for policy proposals if supported by 1 million signatures. Also, it will be a watchdog for national parliaments’ right to object to European level legislative proposals should they think they can handle it better at national level.

Yes, the story is there. But how to tell it? How do we get the message through? Via traditional media? Via new social media? What are the right tools? What are the citizens concerned with?

…but how to tell it?

Yes, the story is there. But how to tell it? How do we get the message through? Via traditional media? Via new social media? What are the right tools? What are the citizens concerned with? We read Eurobarometer. And should people be excited about the EP and its new powers (but of course!) Can they ever care? We tried to convince them to vote. Now, with a presumable elections’ fatigue, is anybody any more receptive to our message? And, could the EP be a victim of its own success?

We try to say it’s good for them. We say it has an impact – a big one – in their daily lives. We give examples, concrete ones. But we’re faced with a lack of faces (except the “X-factor”, soon to be 754, our MEPs), we’re faced with a complex treaty, we’re faced with 22 languages and 27 member states with their different political and legal cultures.

Brand! Target! Go local! Involve emotion! Be creative! Establish a relationship! Invite them to stay in touch – the wise guys out there say. We try. But it’s so much more easier to say than to do it. This is a tough one.

WeBelong batting for Lisbon and Ireland

Plenty of No videos seem to be doing the rounds, spreading the message of the Lisbon Treaty ushering in an improbable world of abortion clinics on every corner, Irish soldiers dying in faraway foreign fields under EU orders, the entire fishing fleet scuppered somewhere off he Galician coast and famers cast into destitution by an EU commissioner wearing a monocle and black leather gloves and known to his friends as Dr Death. The End-Of-Ireland-As-We-Know-It generally, in other words.

My quest: find those shy retiring Yes-videos and see what they were doing to counter the, erm, somewhat tendentious, if not occasionally bizarre, claims of the No camp.

But where are the Yes-videos? Google searches turned up plenty of the above, but the Love Lisbon genre seemed a rather rarer beast. Hence my quest: find those shy retiring Yes-videos and see what they were doing to counter the, erm, somewhat tendentious, if not occasionally bizarre, claims of the No camp. I concentrated on independent sources, not political parties.

Did I strike gold? Well, it’s a mixed bag.  I had high hopes at one point of a guy in giant green spectacles, but for all his undoubted commitment and sincerity, I don’t think he’s going to swing it single-handed.

If your idea of a good campaigning online video is something short, graphically neat, with a simple message and a decent tune, I think so far an offering from WeBelong currently has it for me. (They need to make it easier to share though.)

Not bad stuff from an outfit called Generation Yes, either. My favourite from them goes in for a bit of negative campaigning (not unreasonably, given the large quantities of mud being flung by the other side), while another, rather earnest one, focuses on human rights.

The biggest formal non-party organisation campaigning for a Yes, IrelandforEurope, has definitely got the message that it needs to make online videos, and offers over 40 on its website. Most of these though are talking heads videos – many celebrity endorsements, which is great – but I was really looking for something with viral potential. For me, the pick of the bunch was one which attacked the other side AND made a positive case for the treaty.  Mentions too for themed videos on climate change (nice tune) and humanitarian aid.

Characterisations of the politicians on the two sides of the argument – the Yes side being “incompetent, inept and corrupt” and the No side being “unemployable feckin’ headbangers” – give this over-long video some viral potential

As celebrity endorsements go, my own attention was detained for longest by a video which is anything but slick and graphical: the launch of Ryanair’s pro-Yes campaign, featuring Michael O’Leary in typically trenchant form. His characterisations of the politicians on the two sides of the argument – the Yes side being “incompetent, inept and corrupt” and the No side being “unemployable feckin’ headbangers” – give this over-long video some viral potential, but less so than if O’Leary wasn’t already famous, and loved and loathed, for expressing these sentiments frequently in public. His parade of Ryanair girls in the video give it a slightly anachronistic corniness, but will irk as many as it diverts.

And that’s about it (so far). Not an awful lot, it has to be said. It causes me to reflect on how much harder it is to promote something wordy, technical, legal and complicated (however positive and necessary), as opposed to slagging it off any old how, without having to worry too much about detail and accuracy. Inevitably, going for the people on the other side is easier, something which comes out in the videos above.

Maybe, as in rock’n'roll, the devil has the best tunes

So, what do we conclude? Maybe, as in rock’n'roll, that the devil has the best tunes. Maybe too that the Yes camp needs to get its creative juices flowing before 2 October.

Know any good Yes videos, the one that cracks it? Let us know. The angels can sing too maybe.

Meanwhile, from Generation Yes: