Information policy of the Council of Europe

Recommendation 1113 (1989)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 25 September 1989 (15th Sitting) (see Doc. 6102, report of the Committee on Parliamentary and Public Relations, Rapporteur : Mr Büchner). Text adopted by the Assembly on 25 September 1989 (15th Sitting).

Thesaurus

1. The Assembly considers that the Council of Europe does valuable work for the 400 million citizens in its member states. However, its institutional vocation and its work are little known, essentially for these two reasons :

1.1 the great diversity of its activities does not enable the public to have a clear image of the Organisation ;the defects in its information policy prevent it from raising sufficient interest with the media.

2. The Assembly recommends the following solutions to the Committee of Ministers :

a to concentrate the media's attention on a selection of topical themes ;

b to write documents which, when published, will catch the non-specialists' interest ;

c to review the rules and practices regarding confidentiality of documents in order to make publicity the rule and confidentiality the exception ;

d to improve communication with the public by clarifying the Council of Europe's image, for instance by :

2.4.1 creating a logo and a slogan which would appear on all documents ;

2.4.2 preparing press files on topical subjects dealt with by the Council of Europe ;

2.4.3 setting up closer co-operation with journalists and creating a network of correspondents ;

2.4.4 making the Information Department more professional and improving its facilities.