Hardly ever before was there such urgency for the European Union to improve its contact and dialogue with the citizens. While the EU successfully established itself as a global player, became an economically strong region, masters the financial crises much better than the U.S., EU membership remains an important goal for numerous states, polls in the EU keep showing that its citizens either do not care at all or have many reservations towards the EU. In order to re-capture the support and interest of its citizens the EU institutions need to step up their communication and dialogue with them, better involving them in discussion processes, better listening to their proposals, better informing them about policies. The rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by Ireland demonstrated what consequences missing or outright wrong information about the EU's policies can have, how much they handicap the Union's ability to act. Without the reforms of the EU structures and decision making processes foreseen in the Lisbon Treaty the EU will hardly be able to fulfil its internal tasks and step up to its international responsibilities. Thus, it is high time to change the way the EU and its citizens interact.

The elections to the European Parliament in June 2009 and the second referendum in Ireland in October 2009 are important milestones for the ratification of the Reform Treaty and show the need for dialogue with the civil society. For it is the Lisbon Treaty itself that creates an improved basis for the participation of all citizens in the EU's democratic life and provides for open and subsidiary decision making. Without the Treaty the EU is in danger of disconnecting itself more and more from the people. But with the Treaty national parliaments and civil society actors are exceedingly included in political processes. It introduces the instrument of a "European citizen's initiative" and strengthens the competences of the European Parliament.

These interrelations need to be communicated to the people in Europe. However, reaching almost 500 million inhabitants in 23 official languages is a huge challenge. The declaration on "Communicating Europe in partnership" that was agreed by all EU institutions in December 2008 is a tool that will help in this regard. It ties the communication strategies of Parliament, Council and Commission together and coordinates them. A particularly central task is given to the member states and their regional and local authorities; they have to do the fieldwork of better informing people about the results of European integration, reaching from better water quality, via cross border health care to a strong common currency in times of crisis.

The European integration is a unique success story. After centuries of devastating wars, the peoples of Europe came together and are now solving their disputes by peaceful negotiations instead of at gun point. This great accomplishment however, is a matter of course for young Europeans. The EU must find means to inspire and motivate this generation again to participation and active shaping of their own political and social environment with regard to the various challenges on the agenda.

In its last session, the European Parliament welcomed a report on improving and strengthening the dialogue between the civil society and the EU institutions by way of more transparent consultation processes and by creating a statute for "European associations". With the EU's "Plan D for democracy, dialogue and discussion", which seeks the dialogue with the citizens from the European till the local level and the new information technologies, the people and the institutions have many communication channels. They can provide for better integration of civil society actors in the political decision making processes; and they help the citizens in lobbying for their interests and wishes. Thus, while the EU has the task of provide means and information, the civil society also needs to make use of them. A further, major stone in the communication mosaic is provided to them by the Lisbon Treaty: the "European citizen's imitative". This tool enables the citizens to influence the work programme of EU by requesting concrete legislative proposals from the Commission via the collection of one million signatures for a specific proposal.

The development of a strong European civil society constitutes the basis for a European public opinion, which in turn serves the idea of a united Europe. In order to further guarantee a strong European Union, all institutions need to engage actively in civil dialogues.

Jo Leinen, MEP