European Parliament election?
STRASBOURG - FRANCE - 21 APRIL 2004-- A political debate between MEPs at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. -- PHOTO: ERIK LUNTANG
Where is the interest for the EP?
At this very moment the last people around the Union are heading for the pool stations to give their vote in the European Parliament elections. The last many weeks up to this election a debate has been going on why people don’t have more interest than they have in EU and why less and less show up to give their vote when the parliament gain more power for each elections.
I began to wonder about it again this afternoon after I had joined my wife for the vote to the local school where we live in Brussels. I wondered, because none of our Nordic or European clients has asked for photojournalistic services here in the Benelux or in the European Parliament the last days or this evening in The European Parliament. Up to the elections we have hardly done any reportage or interviews concerning the elections, which is very unusual compared with the past elections.
Earlier today I was watching a WEB-video from Denmark that showed people actually wants to know about EU and find it hard to find information about it in the media. On the other hand a news editor said they did not prioritise EU because they believed people don’t care and have no interest in the EU. (see the video here in Danish). Kristina Siig, a candidate for the Parliament, said that if you keep on repeating that people don’t have interest in EU, it finally become true. A voter also asked how he could be interested if nobody made him interested.
I have seen a huge decline in the interest of EU among my clients, the media, over the many years since the Jacques Santer’s commission resigned in March 1999. Parallel with this Photojournalist feel they are being more controled by the institutions on what they can or can not do. They also feel they are handled more aggressively by staff and it’s not because there are more photojournalist than in the nineties. The amount is more or less the same and there is a healthy mix of old and new. In the same period they have also experienced that it is difficult to do a independent journalistic EU reporting in competition with institutional censored pictures handed out for free by the institutions and paid for with taxpayers money.
In the nineties I had a permanent hotel room reservation in Strasbourg for all the monthly weeks the European Parliament was in the city. I had my own personally working space in the parliament with my own telephone and ISDN-line from France Telecom. Today I hardly go there and certainly not without being assigned the work, otherwise I would be paying money from my own pocket.
In the nineties it was a must to go there and cover stories for tabloid papers, serious morning papers, magazines and other media. Unfortunately it’s not like that anymore. If pictures are used they are from the archives or free pictures supplied by the politician themselves. That way they can control their own image and keep the critical eyes away, a little like advertising campaigns. Or then the picture comes from the news agency focussed on the subject to suit all the european media.
Since 21 April 2004, where this blog’s picture has been taken, I have been covering the Parliament in Strasbourg one time in July 2004, once in October 2004. Nearly one and half year went before I returned to Strasbourg again to cover a huge workers union demonstration in February 2006. I returned again this May for a one-day trip to make an feature on the outgoing Danish MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen.
Experts have many different explanations for why there is no interst in EU. Then it is the media, or the politicians, or the system which are so complicated with a Commission, a Council and a Parliament, or it’s simply lack of support from the national politicians.
I believe it is more complicated than that. I see the internet as one reason. The newspapers began to count the clicks on the articles and saw that fame and sex gets most of them. In the search for more profit they reused articles on many different platforms and in the urge to get more readers the serious newspapers began to copy tabloids. The newspapers simply forgot to serve their readers and the first part to be saved on is the EU politics which are a bit complicated, I believe.
Another reason I see is that the EU institutions, since the Jacques Santer commission resignation, have gained more control on what kind of information gets out in the public. Their communication departments are becoming more and more professional equipped with technology but not always in strategy which is difficult with 27 member states. We hardly hear about controversy in the Barroso commission, if any. All 27 commissioners are always 100% agreeing on everything. Everybody in the system from low to high is very careful what they do or say outside their boxes. This because the institutions is very worried about how the people in Europe look at and see the EU. They don’t like negative news in a project they love.
I believe that free speech, arguments, controversy, fights and discussions are the seeds of progress and evolution. Without these ingredients no progress and people begin not to care anymore. The problem lies in the word “Openness”.