European Union

Written by Philip Boucher,

© 2018 EU-EP/DB

At the STOA-ESMH workshop ‘How to win Elections: Reflections on the use and misuse of technology in electoral campaigns’, a full house of parliamentarians, journalists and citizens heard a panel of distinguished scholars and practitioners discuss the role of technology and analytical techniques in contemporary election campaigns. While many criticisms of these technologies have been discussed since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it is important to remember that technology has also made more direct communications possible between politicians and citizens and that, in theory, the internet could provide the building blocks for greater transparency, accessibility and accountability.

In her welcoming address Eva Kaili (S&D, Greece), MEP and STOA Chair, emphasised the role of STOA and its newly established European Science-Media Hub (ESMH) in informing both policy-makers and citizens. Kaili also highlighted the need for smart regulations that respond to challenges without curtailing freedoms. For example, she argued that, while it is important that citizens understand the implications of highly customised newsfeeds, if some people want to receive tailored information based upon their profiles then they should be free to do so. Chairing the event, Maria Teresa Giménez Barbat (ALDE, Spain), introduced the debate by stressing the benefits of living in contemporary democracies that are increasingly peaceful and prosperous. She also highlighted the important role of good-quality knowledge in responding to the challenges of the day, and suggested that, in the end, it is good arguments that win elections.

© 2018 EU-EP/DB

The four panellists provided a broad range of insights into how technologies and analytical techniques are deployed during election campaigns. First, Jeroen van den Hoven from Delft University of Technology outlined the challenges presented by a ‘Bermuda triangle’ of various technologies and analytical techniques that has led to crises of autonomy and truth. Echoing more established concepts such as privacy by design and ethics by design, he argued that we now need human rights, rule of law and democracy by design. While John Dewey had said that we have to reinvent democracy every day anew, van den Hoven contended that we also have to design for it every day anew. He concluded by highlighting potential initiatives, such as large-scale deliberative platforms, and invited the audience to imagine a ‘Wikipedia of opinions’.

The next speaker, Sophie Lecheler from the University of Vienna, explored how changes in the way news is produced and consumed have led to changes in citizens’ expectations, and also place new demands on the role and activities of journalists. Interestingly, her research shows that the reliance of journalists on social media actually reduces the credibility of news in the eyes of the reader. In another study of journalistic practices, she found a strong reliance on Google, in particular its first page, which she described as evidence that this search platform not only structures how the internet is presented to citizens, but also influences news production from the earliest stages.

© 2018 EU-EP/DB

The next speaker was Inès Levy, representing Liegey Muller Pons, a company that provides tech services for election campaigns, particularly to support decision-making about voter engagement and activism. For them, the message that direct communication is more effective than indirect mass communication need not lead to micro-targeted internet adverts, but back to direct human interaction. For example, they used digital tools to organise a large-scale door-to-door ‘listening exercise’ well before the French presidential election campaign, which served to mobilise and engage the activists working on the campaign, and also to understand more about the perspectives of citizens.

Long before these issues reached the mainstream, the final speaker, David Stillwell from the University of Cambridge, published an article on the power of sending personalised messages to internet users based upon personality traits inferred from data about them. While considering many of these activities useful and relatively harmless – such as book recommendation systems – he expressed concern about the lack of transparency and control over how individuals can be categorised and targeted, and also called for all advertisements to be stored in a repository so that claims and promises can be seen by everyone.

© 2018 EU-EP/DB

Following the panel presentations, an interesting discussion and Q&A took place, which highlighted a recent resolution adopted by the European Parliament on 25 October 2018 proposing a ban on profiling for electoral purposes, including the analysis of online behaviour that may reveal political preferences. While the discussions highlighted some red lines that should be respected – most notably in human rights, the rule of law, transparency and accountability – it also recognised the potential of these often maligned technologies. The challenge is to mobilise them to foster more meaningful deliberation and deeper democratic engagement.

If you missed out this time, you can access the presentations and watch the webstream of the workshop via the event page. Also, watch this space for future STOA events!

Click to view slideshow.

International police organization Interpol on Wednesday (21 November) elected Kim Jong-yang of South Korea as president, beating a Russian whose candidacy had raised concerns in Europe and the United States about the risk of Kremlin interference.

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Trade unions expressed concerns on Tuesday (20 November) about a shortage of skilled workers in the extraction industry, saying this is becoming a problem for Europe at a time of rising global demand for raw materials.

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The World Trade Organization agreed Wednesday (21 November) to hear complaints from a range of countries over new US steel and aluminium tariffs, as well as complaints from Washington over retaliatory duties.

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President Tusk received the letters of credentials from two new ambassadors to the European Union.

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Francis Mvemba tells EURACTIV why he hopes to defeat Congo's political class in December's presidential elections.

Written by Silvia Kotanidis,

© Cesar Andrade / Fotolia

Over more than 20 years, the European Ombudsman’s office has established a reputation and working methods that reflect the work of the three different office-holders to date. Without real power of enforcement, the Ombudsman’s strength lies in the exercise of ‘soft power’, an approach based on the idea that change within an administration comes from understanding where shortcomings occur and an openness to remedying them.

The Ombudsman’s mission pivots around the notion of ‘maladministration’, an open-ended concept that encompasses, but goes beyond, legality. Borrowing an expression from a previous Ombudsman, referring to maladministration as a ‘life beyond legality’, maladministration can be identified with those aspects of administrative behaviour which it is not necessarily possible to subject to judicial review, such as lack of transparency, negligence, delays, service-mindedness, and impartiality.

The Ombudsman can act in both a reactive and a proactive role. On the reactive side, the Ombudsman analyses complaints from citizens, companies or associations and endeavours to reach a ‘friendly solution’. If this is not possible, and maladministration is uncovered, the Ombudsman issues recommendations to address the issue, to which the European Union institutions must react within three months. If, after that, the recommendation is not accepted, the Ombudsman issues a ‘finding of maladministration’. The Ombudsman may also, however, issue recommendations where there is no clear finding of maladministration but nevertheless identifies improvements to the system to propose. In this proactive role, the Ombudsman may begin investigation on the office’s own initiative if, as the result of a complaint or from another source, occurrence of maladministration is suspected in a specific field.

The activity of the Ombudsman can be assessed based on the Ombudsman’s annual reports from 2009 to 2017, which show that the Ombudsman is most engaged regarding matters of transparency, including access to documents (20-30 %). The second area where the Ombudsman is concerned (9‑21 %) appears to be the Commission’s role as ‘guardian of the Treaties’, where the reasonableness of the exercise of that role comes into play. A further 15‑20 % of the Ombudsman’s activities concern a heterogeneous area encompassing broader administrative behaviour, while 13‑19 % concerns financial or contractual issues, such as delays in payments to suppliers. The Commission’s proactive role is also to be highlighted, as a way in which the Ombudsman can exercise a certain influential ‘political’ leverage, by highlighting a specific topic. In recent years, increased strategic use of own-initiative inquiries for issues connected with democratic enhancement and EU institutional ethics, such as accountability, integrity and transparency, can also be observed.

This paper explores possible modifications to the Ombudsman’s Statute that could range from minimal to more substantial ones. While the former could amount to consolidating some established practices, e.g. that of informing the committee responsible for an issue instead of submitting a special report to Parliament, or formalising the existence of the European Network of Ombudsmen, more substantial changes could give the Ombudsman power to refer matters to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), or to intervene in cases pending before the Court. Both these latter proposals, explored in the literature, however confront counter-arguments that depend highly on the type of Ombudsman that is ultimately desired, as attention must be paid to avoid denaturing the role of the European Ombudsman as it currently stands.

Read the complete In-depth analysis on ‘The European Ombudsman: Reflections on the role and its potential‘ on the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) rushed a legislative amendment through parliament on Wednesday (21 November) reversing changes it had made at the Supreme Court that the European Union had condemned as undemocratic.

It looked like a done deal. Interpol, the global law enforcement agency, appeared ready to select Russia’s Alexandr Prokopchuk as its next president – despite the fact that he had been accused of overseeing a policy of systematically targeting critics and dissidents during his time in charge of the Russian office of Interpol.