Conference on the Future of Europe: green lights to the communication plan. Social, media campaign, events, influencers

A detailed “communication plan”, jointly worked out by the Directorates-General for Communication of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council, with help from the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, has been drawn up to “make sure citizens from all corners of Europe may take part in the Conference through its multilingual platform”. “The challenge is to remarkably increase participation and involve as many citizens as possible”, the communication plan says: for this purpose, synergism is required among the three institutions and the two advisory committees as well as the main political players and all the parties concerned in all member states (national and regional parliaments, local authorities, EU-wide and nationwide political parties and organised civil society), which will be supported by the communication kits and tools provided by the European institutions. The plan goes on to say that one can easily imagine that “people’s interest and motivation will increase as the conference moves from being mainly focussed on the process to dealing with the substance and issues at hand”, if citizens feel “the Conference to be a real opportunity to discuss matters that concern their daily life, and their children’s living conditions and future”.

The courses of action of such communication plan are basically four: a massive social media campaign, awareness-raising campaigns (such as events, “multipliers”, influencers, MEPs and Commissioners), tools and events for media professionals, regular updates and improvements of the platform itself to make it more user-friendly, attractive and diverse.
Valentina Bombelli