#EAPM - #AFCO finds digital role in European election engagement

As the Brexit process spins more-and-more out of control, it has never been clearer that the remaining EU-27, and the European Commission, want and need to move ahead with other business, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan.

This is also true of the European Parliament, whose AFCO committee (on Constitutional Affairs) this week held a public hearing in order to explore “the most recent research in voter behaviour and party dynamics”.

The over-arching goal is to find ways to increase engagement and participation in the upcoming European elections. No surprises, there, given consistently disappointing turnout figures as well as it seeming pretty certain that Brits won’t be going to the polls at the end of May (no pun intended, Theresa).

On the table were raising the interest of women, who have been and are historically underrepresented at European polls in contrast to their engagement in national elections, the interlink between parties and policy, and the ongoing transformation of the European party systems due to digitalization.

During the public hearing, both the European Commission and Parliament presented their new “coordinated campaign and rebranding” geared towards the May elections.

Battle of the sexes?

At the event, it was suggested that any inequality between different demographics and social groups in respect of political participation undermines the quality of deliberation, representation, and legitimacy of politics.

The way ordinary citizens connect to the democratic process appears, according to experts, to be to some degree gender-based, with women, on average, engaging less in party and electoral politics.

The gender gap for national parliamentary elections across Europe has largely disappeared, but this is not the case in European parliamentary elections. Recent studies have shown a persistent gender-gap voter turnout in these polls.

After the 2014 elections figures showed that 5% more men participated than women, an increased gap of 2% on 2009.

The meeting heard that equalising policies between sexes are a worthy long-term goal, but not necessarily a guarantee when it comes to political participation.

On a broader note, Juan Rodríguez Teruel, a lecturer from the University of Valencia, told participants that the 20th century has been the century of mass politics. Political parties provide meaningful policy linkages, meaning that changes in the electorate lead to changes in government. This ultimately leads to changes in policy, he said.

Parties transform and adapt, rather than decline, while voters tend to follow the parties they attach themselves to the most, but in a less socially-structured way than in previous decades.

Meanwhile, far from democracy being in decline, data shows that today there is more public attention and increased media coverage on national and even European politics.

Digital tools are defining this new context, forcing political parties to adapt.

Institutional teamwork

Mikel Landabaso Alvarez, Director, Strategy and Corporate Communication, of the Commission’s DG COMM, underlined that there is currently an unprecedented level of co-operation between the European Institutions, going well-beyond what he called "institutional vanities”.

He said that this co-operation will be maintained over time since it is linked to the 10 political priorities designed to make the European Union more transparent and democratic.

Alvarez then explained that the Parliament and Commission have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which establishes a working group, at director and head of unit level, on campaigns and digital matters, outreach activities on the ground, and a campaign based on audio-visual products.

The collaboration has led to EU branding around the European star-spangled flag, with the two institutions cross-referencing their material and having a common repository from which dozens of basic information toolkits can be downloaded.

This allows MEPs to illustrate and motivate citizens during election debates.

Lisbon flags up digital health

Given that the public hearing touched on digital matters, it is worth noting that EAPM’s executive director Denis Horgan has this week been in Lisbon attending a Digital Health Society Summit.

The Portugal eHealth Summit is the 3rd edition of Europe’s largest technology and health summit and has leveraged the country's strategic position in advancing the digital revolution in health, not only at national level, but at the international level and in all areas of society.

The summit brings together more than 13,000 stakeholders, including health professionals as well as service providers, companies and start-ups in the technology sector.

At the event, Horgan gave a presentation on EAPM’s MEGA+ initiative as part of the Alliance’s ongoing engagement with a cross section of stakeholders.

MEGA+ is a response to a clearly demonstrated willingness on the part of many member states, and the highly innovative regions within them, to collaborate when it comes to comprehensive genomic data sharing in health care.

The MEGA+ initiative extends the process to all medial data, not just genomes, to include imaging, eHealth apps, electronic health records, and more, all undertaken with the highest level of ethics and patient consent.

Speaking from the Portuguese capital, Horgan said: “One reason that I’m here at this digital gathering is to highlight that EAPM is working to make personalised medicine in healthcare a reality, and also in order get even more stakeholder backing for MEGA+, which promises to be a major facilitator.”

He also pointed out that EAPM is a partner in IMI’s HARMONY project, takes a lead in PIONEER - which is a European Network of Excellence for Big Data in Prostate Cancer, consisting of 32 partners across nine countries - and the DigitalHealthEurope (DHE) project. The latter is a Horizon 2020 initiative within the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation and will provide comprehensive, centralized support to the digital transformation of health and care.

Upping knowledge levels among citizens

Back at the AFCO gathering, Director Alvarez said that 440 Europe Direct centres have been mobilised around the upcoming elections, with the Commission’s role being to give people more informed opinions, and discuss the shape of the EU that they would like to see in future.

A Eurobarometer survey has shown that the single most important factor driving people to vote in European elections is knowledge and understanding of what the EU does that actually has an noticeable impact on their daily lives.

In that respect, as an example, the award-winning #EUANDME campaign targets 18-24 year olds. One other group being particularly targeted, attendees heard, are expats, as millions of European citizens will be living outside the EU during the elections.

A colleague of Alvarez at DG COMM, Alexander Kleinig, told the forum that the two EU Institutions are now cross-promoting their own products. For example, Parliament’s social media channel has millions of subscribers who are being given insights into the strategic campaigns run by the Commission.

The Parliament and Commission are also co-operating on distribution channels and, beyond DG COMM, the Parliament is also working through the branches of the Commission, particularly in research through the Joint Research Centre, where briefings are held on voter behaviour.

It was noted that while French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to create a positive agenda for Europe were easy to communicate, in reality this has not materialized, and it’s possible that the electorate sees this as a lack of EU policies that solve day-to-day problems.

Yet according to DG COMM’s Kleinig, there is a high interest in the upcoming European elections.  Parliament has monitored public opinion over the past year, and it seems that interest levels are  much higher than in 2014, according to Eurobarometer.

Tusk and elections

Meanwhile, EU President Donald Tusk has written to members of the European Council ahead of this week’s summit and highlighted defending “the strategic interests of the Union”.

He spoke about “protecting our democracies from manipulation and interference from inside and outside the EU”.

We will return to efforts to combat the threat of disinformation and to protect elections across the EU,” he said, adding that, on Friday (22 March), those at the summit will “address the future of our economic base, climate change, disinformation and the protection of elections”.