EU shake-up tries to woo public

Mountain to climb: Romano Prodi tries to win trust

The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, has begun a new attempt to try to win public confidence in the European Union in the face of increasing disenchantment.

The public is not convinced that its voice is being heard

Romano Prodi

In a report filled with stinging critiques of its own practices, the commission has pledged to scrap pages of complex EU legislation and create openness and transparency within the institutions.

The aim is to get public opinion onside ahead of the next round of treaty negotiations in 2004.

But the BBC's Angus Roxburgh in Brussels says many of the proposals are platitudes that have been trumpeted and failed before.

'Remedies'

"The public is not convinced that its voice is being heard," said Mr Prodi.

The commission's white paper laid out five guiding principles: openness, effectiveness, participation, coherence and accountability.

Guiding principles

openness

effectiveness

participation

coherence

accountability

Mr Prodi pledged immediate "remedies" to start the reform train - amongst them the promise to slash 80,000 pages of what Mr Prodi called "complex and obscure" treaty legislation by simplifying jargon.

No laws would be repealed but the aim is to implement more framework directives - broadbrush laws which give national governments more flexibility in how they implement them.

At the same time, he said, accountability for laws had to be streamlined - indicating more responsibility should be put in the hands of the commission.

In addition consultation over EU matters would, he promised, be widened.

"We don't take sufficient account of the experiences of regions and cities," he said.

But after 18 months of work by a large team of experts, our correspondent says Mr Prodi's report has little chance of making a real impact on public perceptions.

Apathy and anger

The new drive follows a series of opinion polls that show ordinary people know little and care less about the EU, a disregard highlighted by Ireland's recent rejection of he Nice Treaty on EU enlargement.

They do not know what its institutions do and feel they cannot influence policies.

In a recent EU poll around 78% of those asked said they are not well informed about the EU's eastward expansion - one of its most pressing issues - and a staggering 87% feel uninvolved in the political debate about its pros and cons.

The BBC's European affairs analyst says, faced with this lack of knowledge as well as increasing anger of the kind seen at Genoa and Gothenburg, the commission has a high mountain to climb to make the public love it.