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EUROPEAN REVIEW

ISSUE 34 - Page 8

AFTER THE REJECTION OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITUTION by the voters of the Netherlands and France, as well as declining participation in European Parliamentary elections, the new EU Commission made an effort to ‘re-connect with the citizens’. Margot Wallström was appointed as Vice-President for Communication Strategy and a ‘Plan D for Dialogue, Debate and Democracy’ was hatched. Now this strategy is being put into practice a web site has been initiated to find out what the people of Europe’s views are on a number of subjects. The ‘Debate Europe’ pages are currently limiting discussion to three topics: Europe's economic and social development, feeling towards Europe and the European Union's tasks and Europe's borders and its rôle in the world. From the visit that the European Review made to these debates contributions would appear to be both numerous and lively. They can be made in 20 different languages and are threaded so that it is easy to follow the points being made.
The site also includes contributions from the Commissioner: including a spoken introduction, through the magic of mp3. Ms. Wallström also posts a weblog to keep us up to date with her daily progress. No entries had been made for 2 weeks when we checked but 154 comments had already been made on the last posting, some of them defending the Daily Mail which she had made a wry comment about. The discussion will be fed back to the Commission and the Council of Ministers after the ‘period of reflection’ which they asked for following the adverse votes. This is also supposed to include national debates although the UK (see article below) could not be found among the links to these from the web site.


Danish e-Revolution spreads from bills to waiting lists

DENMARK HAS TAKEN ITS DRIVE towards eGovernment several steps further since receiving an award for an online invoicing system (see our last issue). Not only is it now compulsory for companies dealing with the state to submit their invoices electronically but public employees can shop for goods using a swipe card which automatically generates the required documentation. The changes have gone much further however, citizens can use a range of services online such as checking the progress of their child in the waiting list for a nursery or making sure their health insurance record is correct.  On the whole the electronic revolution has been welcomed by individuals and businesses but there are worries that just as most people become comfortable with it a minority will be left behind. Claus Juhl, from the government's Digital Task Force defends compulsion: ‘not only 5% or 10% are using the new tools, … you get a real transformation of society’.

A Danish customer using the new invoicing swipe card

Web sites mentioned above are available at:

DebateEurope - Front page	http://europa.eu.int/debateeurope/index_en.htm
Commissioner Margot Wallström’s weblog	http://weblog.jrc.cec.eu.int/page/wallstrom
Watch a video about e-invoicing in Denmark	http://www.oes.dk/sw18714.asp
Britain in the EU - Front page:	http://www.europe.gov.uk/

Foreign Office to spread the word on EU

A RECENT EUROBAROMETER POLL SHOWED that 60% of British people wanted more information on the EU. Now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has set out to plug the gap with a new web site.
According to Minister for Europe Douglas Alexander: ‘The EU has brought many benefits to the United Kingdom, but there are many myths too. This website is one resource in helping to cut through those myths, so that people can see the facts for themselves and make up their own minds on the benefits the European Union brings to the UK’.