Introduction

The launch of the Convention on the Future of Europe in 2002 and the signature of the Constitutional Treaty in Rome in 2004 had a profound symbolic impact on European supporters’ imaginations. The hope for a new direction in the process of integration was palpable as it opened up new perspectives for the creation of a real democratic, united, supranational polity that would replace the present economic and political Union. But the failure of the ratification of the Constitution after the negative referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005 dramatically dashed all those expectations, paving the way for the “period of reflection” about the future European Union (EU), its institutions, activities, and perspectives. Thus the President of the Commission, José Barroso, and Vice- President Wallström have launched a communication plan to improve the public understanding of EU and its activities and to strengthen a common sense of belonging between citizens. The importance assumed by the information and communication policy among the EU institutions and the interest risen around the European Commission’s initiatives to improve the dialogue with citizens have stimulated a wide academic debate on the EU, its democratic legitimacy and its communicative efforts. The greater part of the scientific literature developed on EU communication is focused on the concept of “public sphere”, which is generally referred to as the place where the public opinion takes form through the discussion of problems, political issues and decisions and where the political power is placed under scrutiny. The book, instead, analyses the EU communication activities against the backdrop of the theory of input and output legitimacy elaborated by Scharpf (1999). This approach will help us in investigating all the different dimensions of the institutional communication process. It would also offer an alternative normative model against which assessing the relationship between communication and democratic legitimacy in the EU. Especially for the EU, communication is a particularly important strategic resource that covers different dimensions of communicating towards, with and by different publics, such as journalists, citizens, civil society organisations, companies, civil servants, Member States’ governments, etc. For EU institutions, the number of potential and active publics is extremely large due to its multi-level nature that encompasses different institutional settings (supranational, national, and local) and different types of actors involved in the policy-making (governments, administrations, experts, civil society organisations, associations, etc). Knowing how the EU communicates with its different publics can help to better grasp to what extent the EU is still suffering from a legitimacy deficit, and how communication could help in solving this problem.