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The Europe roundup: We can fix this only together...with or without you?

Antonella Napolitano | March 8, 2010 - 5:12am | Email This!
  • Spain | We can fix this only together...with or without you?
    In the past days the Spanish Chamber of Commerce launched an initiative to raise the confidence of citizens affected by the economic crisis. The campaign is called "Esto solo lo arreglamos entre todos" ("We can fix this only together") and it is willing to be "the biggest social therapy of the history", in the words of Susana Diaz, one of the consultant working on the project. The campaign consists of a website and several ads by both anonymous citizens and celebrities (the ad campaign costed 4 millions, according to Expansión).
    But so far it has not been well received by lots of citizens who felt betrayed by this sort of sharing responsibilities: on Facebook it is easy to find groups protesting against the campaign, with several hundreds of fans each. The protesters complain that the campaign is opportunist and demagogic, even creating a website called "We can fix this only *without them"*" to send "a message loud and clear to the organizers of the ad campaign and the state: we are not the problem.".
    (thanks to Anna Bellorbì)
  • The Netherlands | Is the SP the only one who got the Obama campaign?
    On the SP (the Dutch Socialist Party) website, Kevin Levie explains how the Obama campaign has been a model that several European parties are trying to imitate, often without a new political approach: "What many European politicians don't seem to realise is that the manner in which a campaign is conducted is not unconnected to the campaign's message".
    Not news, so far. But Levie shows also some examples of campaigns and claims that the SP is the only successful party, with its truly grassroots approach to political campaigning: "we were for a long time the most admired political website: our ‘viral movies’, such as helpjanff.nl, were watched by 1.7 million Dutch people, around a tenth of the population; and in 2006 Jan Marijnissen was declared the best political weblogger. Many of our initiatives have through the years been imitated by other political parties. Not only the SP's message, but also our party's ways of working connect logically to the kind of grassroots campaign conducted by Obama".
    We would like to know what our Dutch friends think about that. Do you agree with this analysis?
  • UK | The British Election Study: how (and if) parties are contacting voters
    The British Election Study (BES) has been conducted by the University of Essex since 1964: its main goal is to describe and to explain why people vote, why they vote as they do, what affects the election outcome, and what are the consequences of elections for democracy in Britain. A recently published pre-election survey asks people if they have been contacted by one or more of the political parties in the last six months.
    The type of contact can vary from canvassing and telephoning to receiving messages via social network sites. The survey shows that about a quarter of the electorate have been contacted since July 2009 and that the Conservatives are way ahead of their rivals. Surprisingly, the Liberal Democrats came second in the list with a contact rate of 46 per cent, while Labour has a rate of only 35 per cent.
  • EU | The European Citizens' Initiative: still too early?
    We already wrote about the European Citizens’ Initiative and the doubts about its successful implementation. Want to know more? Here you can read two other critical posts by Mathew Lowry and Kosmopolit, underlining risks and opportunities of this participation instrument.
  • EU | Why EU officials love The West Wing
    The EU web editors have an interesting post about the "political fascination" coming from the Award-winning TV serie: "Can we afford to lose even that basic belief that the system, at heart, can work for us rather than against us?".

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