1 European Public Spheres Christine Landfried University of Hamburg Institute of European Studies University of California, Berkeley 11th February 2009

2 Contents I. Definition II. Conditions for the evolution of a European Public Sphere III. Thesis IV. Empirical evidence V. Proposals

3 I. Definition The European public sphere is a communication space in which citizens, groups of civil society or political parties in different public spheres on different levels discuss European topics. It is the normative idea of a European public sphere that a public opinion is built up with the potential to criticize and control political power in the European Union on an informed basis.

4 „Opinion-making“ and „decision- making“ public spheres Mass media – TV, radio, press and increasingly the Internet - are the most important public spheres in which public opinion is built up. One differentiates between „decision-making“ public spheres like f.e. Parliaments and „opinion-making“ public spheres like the media.

5 Diversity and Difference Mass media should deliver a diversity of information and opinions and must be independent. There has to be a difference between the media system and the political system. This difference is in danger because politics are getting more and more geared towards the media.

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7 Public Support for European Integration The result of EU referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005 and in Ireland in 2008 as well as political science research show “voices of popular disaffection and alienation from the EU” (de Búrca). There is a gap between the level of elite and public support for European integration. In 1996 for which we have comparable data the gap varied from 12% in Ireland to 57% in Sweden (Hooghe, Marks 2008).

8 III. Thesis Euroscepticism of public opinion can be explained by insufficient democratic structures and the rare chances for citizens to shape policy by voting. As long as this is the case the interest of citizens in European topics will be limited and a dialogue between citizens and politicians cannot evolve. One cannot blame the media that do report on Europe with a predominantly European point of view.

9 IV. Empirical evidence 1. Media do report if there are European political decisions that are of interest and transparent. An example is the Constitutional Debate. The European Convention has been well covered in the quality press (not in TV). 2. Media did not primarily report from a national point of view.

10 Table 1: Number of articles on the opening of the Convention in the quality press “

11 Table 2: National and European orientation of articles in quality press

12 Transnational public spheres in the context of EU referenda In the context of the EU referenda in France and the Netherlands transnational public spheres evolved. The following graph shows empirical data for media coverage of the French referendum in German newspapers Handelsblatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt (x-axis: Days from , y-axis: number of articles from 0 – 25).

13 Table 3: Media coverage of the French EU-Referendum in Germany

14 Media coverage and the „reflection period“ In the so-called „ reflection period“ after the referenda in 2005 until the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007 political elites were negotiating behind closed doors. Media coverage went down. This again shows the relation between shortcomings of public spheres and non-democratic politics.

15 Explanation for the following graph: Blue Line: Czech Republic Red Line: Estonia Yellow Line: France Green Line: Germany Purple Line: Poland Brown Line: United Kingdom x-axis: Months from October June 2007 y-axis: Number of articles from

16 Media coverage of the Constitutional Debate in CZ, EST, FR, GER, PL, UK (Liebert, Trenz 2008)

17 IV. Proposals What can be done? 1. The approach of the European Commission will not remedy the shortcomings of public spheres.

18 Why? Because communication policy of the Commission is paternalistic, mainly pointing to the advantages of the EU and not mentioning the shortcomings in democratic structures. Empirical evidence: Analysis of video on European Constitution (2005). Analysis of the Commission‘s White Paper COM (2006) 35 final of on a European communication policy. Analysis of the speech of Margot Wallström on

19 What is needed 2. Possibilities for citizens really to shape policies in Europe: Direct election of the President of the European Commission Europe-wide referenda on Constitutional Politics Legislative Initiative for European Parliament

20 Cited Literature: Búrca, Gráinne de, The European Constitution Project after the Referenda. In: Constellations 13(2006), pp Hooghe, Liesbet, Gary Marks, A Postfunctionalist Theory of European Integration: From Permissive Consensus to Constraining Dissensus. In: British Journal of Political Science 39 (2008), pp Landfried, Christine, Wolfgang Settekorn, Allemagne: Une vision politicienne et institutionelle. In: Hermès 46 (2006), pp (for table 3). Landfried, Christine, Das Entstehen einer europäischen Öffentlichkeit. In: Claudio Franzius, Ulrich K.Preuß, Europäische Öffentlichkeit, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2004, pp. 123 – 137 (for tables 1 and 2). Liebert, Ulrike, Hans-Jörg Trenz, Mass Media and Contested Meanings: EU Constitutional Politics after Popular Rejection, EUI Working Papers, RSCAS 2008/28.