Abstract:

• Information is the lifeblood of the EU and EurActiv mines it successfully
• Transparency has been and remains a key value at EurActiv
• EurActiv has stretched the European public debate linguistically and done so efficiently

 

Happy Birthday EurActiv! It is a tribute to EurActiv’s current status as an irreplaceable information source that I find it surprising that you are not thirty years old! You deserve our thanks for the sheer courage of coming into existence in the face of technical and political problems.

 

Information is the life blood of the European Union and EurActiv mines it successfully. It is in Brussels while the media that matter are back in the national capitals. For the British this produced an early bias towards Eurosceptic stories, because they are the only ones that got carried by sub-editors in London. Journalists, however principled, got bored with writing honest copy that was spiked and went nowhere. As the newly elected Chairman of the Conservative MEPs in 1994, I was advised to give a series of interviews to the British press. My first venture was dinner with The Times Europe correspondent. I worked hard to read up on his background and drank no alcohol over supper. Two days later an article appeared in The Times. My arguments had been stood on their head and they even managed to get my name wrong. For the following two weeks I fought a losing battle with the non-existent “Paul” Spencer as readers of The Times responded to the views of my doppelganger. A week later it was the turn of The Financial Times to be lunched in Brussels. I asked him why The Times played such silly games when the FT did not. He explained it entirely in terms of circulation. The FT depended on its international credibility for its profit and therefore had to invest in proper coverage. On the other hand The Times had few readers on the mainland and could afford to play political games with their European coverage. To this day “I read the FT and EurActiv if I want to know the truth”, and add “other newspapers, if I want to see what the British people have been told about Europe”. This gap will be crucial in the later stages of the UK Referendum. Success will go to those who understand the issues, as expressed on both sides of the Channel.

 

EurActiv has a robust tradition of neutrality between political parties and national positions of which I approve. However it would be taking balance too far if EurActiv decided to remain neutral on the question of the British leaving the European Union. EurActiv is by its very nature a key to the institutional development of the European Union. To be neutral on Brexit is like a fish being against water.

 

While it took courage to create and expand EurActiv, we owe the leading role it took with a “Public Affairs Section” to Christophe’s passion for transparency, which dates back to his time at the European Commission. When founding the European Centre for Public Affairs in 1986, I argued that a new political structure such as a European Union operating under Majority Voting would be dependent on the purity of its supply of information. Information in the right quality, at the right time and in the right form is the true currency of the EU. The co-operation between European Parliamentarians and EurActiv has proved crucial in Parliament’s role of improving legislation. Well intentioned pre-consultations by the European Commission have often favoured the views of larger players at the expense of the small, the innovative and the valuable. Despite successive exposés of MEPs’ supposed willingness to take money to push specific parliamentary action, the public affairs system that has emerged after fifteen years is remarkably robust. The ECPA worked because big public affairs players did not want to be subverted by cowboys. EurActiv resolutely pursued the sometimes devious interaction of the Institutions on the question of the Transparency Register. The current Public Affairs situation may not be perfect, but it would have been a lot worse without EurActiv’s intervention and communications.

 

EurActiv has stretched the concept of Europe geographically, linguistically and philosophically. It is as valuable for its detail as for its generalised assertions. There have of course been times when many of us have wondered what on earth EurActiv was banging on about, but this politician turned academic will be for ever grateful for the coffee and conversation with many members of EurActiv over the past fifteen years. Let me pay tribute to the whole EurActiv team, surrounded as they are by bright yellow everywhere and packed into glass boxes. Take heart that your confined conditions can be justified on the grounds of efficiency, rather like that of battery hens. Furthermore I am assured that your bright yellow environment does not cause liver damage. I look forward to wishing you all a happy thirtieth birthday.

 

Tom Spencer, Visiting Professor of Public Affairs, Brunel University

21^st October 2015

Author : EurActiv: Pioneering Values in European Media
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