EUAA/SF – Press Meeting

As we used the Subversive Fair for getting to know “critical subcultures” better, we agreed to present a first preview of our results of our market research at a small and improvised press meeting followed by a short Q&A. And we gave a first positive signal for continuity: The EUAA will do its best to organize a follow up event of the Subversive Fair next year in Brussels! By the way, the machine we used to announce the event is called Free Speaker – we think this would be the perfect gadget for all these boring meetings in  Frankfurt or Brussels Think about that!

EUAA/SF – Learning Tour

Today we tried to strengthen the communication and the exchange between the EUAA and other exhibitors. If there is one factor the EUAA tried to incorporate into every detail of the organisation, it’s the willingness to learn from others. That’s why we visited the booths of Monkeydick, Guerilla Gardening, Ruppe Kosseleck, Biederpunk and many others. In the evening we had a short session with Jacob Chromy from Antipreneur on viral marketing and new possibilities due to the new legislation. Message to Frankfurt: It would be cool to have Chromy in our team for the next think-tank days!

EUAA/SF – Young Radicals Europainting Competition

As every year, the EUAA will do the Young Radical Europainting Competition. Today, we started the challenge to find the Austrian winner, who will take part at the final round in Frankfurt this autumn .For the first time, our general secretary herself took the responsibility to appoint the lucky winner. And amongst 10 young & radical europainter, a couple work won! Congratulations to Lola & Billy from Vienna!

EUAA/SF – First Day

A long and intense first day at the Subversive Fair in Linz, Austria. Everything is so different here compared with all the other fairs we did so far. The best example is the open “Volxküche” of Wam Kat, who is preparing delicious vegan food for participants and audience- maybe due to this nutritious and healthy food all the people are relaxed and easy. We started with our market research “thoughts on the liberalisation”, which is a long term study on the impact of new advertising strategies.

EUAA/SF – Setting up!

After first interesting discussions with colleagues from various other fields, we are looking forward to tomorrow’s opening. Although we have the feeling that we are slighly overdressed, we try to represent the union from its best side.

EUAA at the Subversive Fair, Linz/Austria

As the commission is co-financing parts of the “Cultural capital of Europe” initiative, the EUAA was invited to use the projects of the Linz ’09 programme for doing market research on specialized target groups – EUAA Austria decided to rent a booth at the Subversive Fair, which sees itself as a “trade fair for counter culture and resistance technology”. We thought that the core concept behind the new legislation in itself could be a good starting point for discussions on social upheavals. From today on we will publish a short video blog about this rather unusual fair.

Community Agencies of the European Union

In this weeks’ web video programme of the commission on “Community Agencies of the EU” Bo-Dennis Böök from the EUAA Nordic Region office in Stockholm presented some points out of the EUAA agenda for the Swedish EU council presidency in the second half of 2009. Mr. Böök announced first cooperations with a well-know Swedish car manufacturer and explained Swedens importance as “test market for the eurozone”. We are curious to see if Sweden can fulfill all of Bo-Dennis’ promises- if not it’s a good remark of Bo-Dennis that “there are cheap flights down to the continent”.

Financial crisis gives boost to EUAA policy

Vienna. The current financial crisis within the European Union has revived efforts for advertising liberalization policies. At the 4th EUAA Conference on February 12-13, 2009 in Vienna, Austria, Daniel Bleninger presented the final draft for an economic stimulation plan mostly focusing on the liberalization of automobile infrastructure, the healthcare sector and public entertainment facilities.

Germany’s Vice Secretary of Economic Affairs, Kurt Hagen-Daschle, stated that the final draft presented is well designed, but needs to be adapted to conform with policies of the EU member states. Austrian State Secretary for Infrastructure and Energy, Elisabeth Steinmeier, commented that the work of the EUAA is proof that EU agencies are far more capable of streamlining national policies for an EU-wide effect, an argument that in recent months has been heavily criticized by the French presidency: “The EUAA has shown that small and solid EU agencies are far more efficient in executing economic plans for consumer markets than Brussels.”

Part of the EUAA’s advantage in realising Brussels’ mandates is its location in Frankfurt which allows to foster ties with the international financial market. Daniel Bleninger notes that the EUAA’s “main office in Frankfurt is the best location you can ever have. Every tiny disruptions of international markets are felt there within an instant. You get a call in the morning and you read about it in the Times the next day. It’s incredible!”

EU Communication and the media: allies or enemies?

News editors and experts from European, national and regional media will have their say about Vice-President Wallström’s new Communication Strategy in a stakeholder conference in Helsinki next week.

Background

The ‘Europe in Vision’ conference, to be held in Helsinki from 4-5 December 2006, is the third in a series of stakeholder conferences responding to Margot Wallström’s White Paper on Communication. The conference is co-organised by the Finnish Presidency and will allow a number of media experts (editors, publishers, directors of print press, TV, radio and the new internet media) to comment on the Commission’s plans to create a “European Public Sphere”. Willy De Backer has been invited to participate in the conference and moderate a session on the role, influence and audience of the new internet journalism.

Issues

When Vice-President Wallström presented her White Paper in February 2006, there was an outcry from Brussels correspondents because a leaked draft had included the idea that the EU should set up its own press agency by upgrading the existing service ‘Europe By Satellite’.  Although Mrs Wallström has, on several occasions, publicly stated that there are no plans for an EU press agency as such, certain media remain doubtful because in other debates in Brussels (such as during a recent conference organised by the Economic and Social Committee), the idea has resurfaced.

So, what is actually written about the media in the present White Paper?

First of all, the Commission regrets that “media coverage of European issues remains limited and fragmented”. Secondly, new ‘interactive media’ have “increased the accessibility of information” but “it will still take a lot of work to fully exploit information technology’s potential to close the information gap”.

The White Paper proposes several concrete actions to improve European news take-up by the media:

• Giving Europe a ‘human face’
• putting EU news in a national, regional and local context
• exploiting the potential of new technologies
• encouraging public bodies at European, national and regional level to supply the media with high-quality news and current affairs material
• giving EU institutions better communication tools and capacities, eg by upgrading ‘Europe By Satellite’ “with a focus on producing high quality audiovisual content which is user-friendly and relevant to the citizens…”
• establishing a “European Programme for Training in Public Communication”, and
• exploring “with a wide range of media players how to better provide the media … with material which is relevant to them, with a view of adapting the information to the needs of different countries and segments of the population”.

The Helsinki conference will address these issues as Commission officials face representatives of European, national, regional and local media. The questions posed in the invitation for the conference give an indication of the main topics that will be up for debate:

• How can we ensure that European citizens get the coverage they want and need?
• How can audiovisual media take a greater role in the European public sphere?
• Is there a need for a pan-European TV channel?
• What does cross-cultural boradcasting mean?
• Could the interactive media and citizen’s journalism (note from the editor: blogs and wikis) change the information market and  the debate on Europe?

Positions

Responding to the Commission’s White Paper, EUAA consulted over the last six months with its advisory council and the media’s network and produced its own Yellow Paper on EU Communication. The main message of EUAA’s Yellow Paper is that the EU should radically decentralise its communication strategy  empowering national sectoral multipliers such as companies, trade unions, NGOs, media and other stakeholders that will bring EU debates closer to the everyday life of citizens.

EUAA regrets that the role of the new media, and their editorial value added, is not fully exploited in the Commission’s White Paper. Because the Commission wants to reach the broad public (and not the sectoral mediators), it focuses most of its recommendations on improving the relationshîp with TV media. In fact, internet is the primary source of information for other media, especially for the majority of national and regional print and audiovisual services without Brussels representation.

In a commentary on the White Paper, the European Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed its concerns about the proposed “upgrading of Europe By Satellite” and the plans to “provide material” to the national and subregional level. “We are concerned that too much of the Commission’s thinking is around strategies to get media to tell a “good news” story about the European Union. Much of the philosophy appears to be based on the idea that if journalists won’t tell the story as the Commission want it told, they will do it themselves”, says the IFJ.

The European Broadcasters Union (EBU) expressed similar concerns in their contribution to the debate. “The EBU considers that the European institutions should avoid supplying pre-edited pictures and ready-made reportage. The cutting and editing of news and current affairs items is the responsibility of the media. In a healthy democracy, the separation of roles must be respected.”

Latest & next steps

• The next stakeholder meeting for the White Paper will take place in Berlin from 18-19 January 2007.
• The Commission will present a revised White Paper or an Action Plan in March 2007.

Alcoholic Beverages Marketing

Frankfurt. Following the warnings issued by our colleagues in the European Parliament, consumer groups and the media on the marketing of alcoholic beverages (“market more responsibly or face tighter regulations”), the EUAA will develop a Communications Guidebook reflecting the current status of consensus within the Parliament and the Commission.

Furthermore, we will seek – in cooperation with the EACA – opportunities to extend the infrastructure for responsible advertising of leisure beverages in the new member states, especially in Romania and Bulgaria by January 2007. Technical standards are yet to be harmonized within these states for efficient cost planning of marketing campaigns within the European Union.