€ 4 m for a 9-months online discussion

The EU's latest communication project, myparl.eu, has been criticised by Bruno Waterfield of the Telegraph. While it is the usual eurosceptic headline "EU project ABC costs taxpayer € X-Z m" there are some questions around this € 4 m EU project.

Stanley Crossick, who will be a moderator of one of the online fora on myparl.eu, responds on his blog to the critics:

It is “an internet rival to Facebook”. Wrong: It is first and foremost a forum for online debate. It is most certainly not being set up as a rival to existing social networking sites.

Indeed the claim that myparl.eu is essentially the same as facebook is wrong (the all content will be visible to everyone). What is true however, is that € 4 million spent for a "pilot information network" which allows MEPs to discuss with members of national parliaments is a lot of money. It is even more money if one considers also the following:

• The website only starts in October. And further, it is planned to run only for a maximum of 20 months. So it is essentially a short-term, one-off project before the EP elections. The core project duration is therefore only 9 months.
  
  
• Many MEPs will start to concentrate on preparing their campaign for the upcoming European elections. They are likely to prefer discussing with local voters than with "similar interest" MEPs or MPs from other countries on a website.

However, it is wrong to blame all this on EurActiv or Mostra. The tender specifications have been developed by DG Communication. So the two companies are just contractors for a EU project. In the same way, as Berlin based Media Consulta has been awarded the organisation for related myparl "meetings", as you can see in the tender notice.

Here are some questions that I would have regarding myparl.eu:

• Who owns the intellectual property rights for the website myparl.eu and what happens to it after project closure?
  
  
• How is the content licenced which appears on myparl.eu?
  
  
• Where is the EU logo on the project website?
  
  
• Could someone (for example from DG Communication) please post the full tender specification, so that the EU blogosphere can monitor and see what is exactly planned?
  

Internet work essential for MEP offices

One thing is clear: these new web 2.0 / google "sites" for EU affairs are here to stay. And it will always mean to involve MEPs to some extend, despite many of them avoiding to come too close to a PC.

It will be good for everyone who prepares for running in the 2009 European elections to make sure she or he has someone (or better: several) on the team who is 100% internet fit. Outlook, Word and Excel are computer skills of the past. You need people who can implement a strategy for monitoring and communicating with facebook, blogs, myparl(s), twitter, email and other online channels. Do not just rely on the fact that you have "already some young people in the team". Many MEP assistants are younger than 30, so this doesn't distinguish them enough for the upcoming online challenges.