David Morgan - The European Parliament, Mass Media and the Search for Power and Influence

The processes of European integration have never been easy. The European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Community (EC) have well documented low periods, in the 1960s and 1980s, during which the future direction of integration, if not the process itself, was in doubt (George, 1990; Nugent, 1989). Given the scope of the undertaking such events need cause no surprise. By the late 1990s, however, the stakes have been raised considerably as the European Union (EU) simultaneously faces monetary union under a central European bank and tries to establish a common foreign and defence policy at a time of both high unemployment and the admission of economically weak Central European states. Additionally there are considerable Union tensions over immigration, trade problems with the USA, and the possibility of defecting member states (Duignan and Gann, 1994).

It is hardly surprising in such a context that calls for democratic accountability and transparency revived. In March 1993 what became known as the De Clercq Report Reflection on Information and Communication Policy of the European Community was finalised. It argued that There is no strategic direction for Community communication, (p. 4) and, inter alia, referred to the European Parliament as the guarantor of pluralism and democracy (p. 15). It called for the creation of an Office of Communication under a Commissioner who would have direct access to the President (p. 43). The Office, in so far as communication activities are concerned should, the Report proposed, be responsible for all Directorates General and Commission offices in member states (p. 43). The Commissioner should harmonise all Community communications, target special publics (women, youth, journalists, etc.) and ensure much greater use and reliance on audio-visual communication (DeClercq, 1993, p. 17). Given the fundamental implications of its proposals it is unsurprising that the Report was greeted with caution and not implemented.

Arguably the European Parliament (EP) has been the principal victim of the failure to implement the Reports proposals. In 1995 a partisan study of the EU characterised Parliament, despite Maastricht, as the Unions weakest institution and blamed the French and British governments for that situation (Tartwyk-Novey, p. 96). In January 1996 the Hill and Knowlton Report on Parliaments communication policy concluded There is no structured communication policy of the European Parliament (Hill and Knowlton, p. 63) and suggested several steps to improve the situation. Addressing the position of Parliament within EU generally, Juliet Lodge anatomised the confusions and the difficulties present in most debates on both subjects. She noted:

Unless the European Parliament uses opportunities to highlight publicly (or to embarrass) governments over spending plans or failures ... its activities remain invisible to the public eye ... Overall, the unintentional effect of Euro-elections perhaps has been indirectly to heighten scepticism about the EUs democratic legitimacy, effectiveness and the appropriateness of its institutional arrangements (Lodge et al., 1996, pp. 212-13).

During 1996 two scholars examined the goals of European integration and pointed to their ambiguities. John Crawley noted that integration as used could mean either a long term socio-economic process (convergence), a political construction, or a symbolic process (European identity) or finally ... prudential cooperation between states and non-state bodies ... (Crawley, 1996, p. 150). Following this Philip Schlesinger, while acknowledging the importance of cultural and industrial defence, called for the building of a new political culture which could manage the persistence of national difference (Schlesinger, 1996, p. 24). In November 1996, prior to the Dublin Summit, the EU launched a Citizens First programme aimed at persuading European voters, as the Parliament President put it, that EU is a lot more than simply the commercial marketplace or a faceless, cold bureaucracy, and asserted that the Parliament had a key role in changing such perceptions (EP News (Irish), 9-13 December, 1996, p. 2). A week earlier The European had published the results of a Mori poll in the UK showing declining general support for EU membership except, interestingly, among the young and the affluent who wanted continued membership by margins, respectively, of 20 per cent and 28 per cent