The Commission web editors demand more web 2.0

Dick Nieuwenhuis has posted an open letter that 50 internet editors of the European Commission have sent to Commission President Barroso demanding more web 2.0 with the Commission.

The editors demand both, a better use of new technologies on the European institution websites and and a more open attitude of the institutions towards new social media, including the encouragement of EU staff to be actively involved within these new media.

Although I think that the document itself still reads very institutional and could have been a little more concise, I applaud the online editors for taking this bold step, something you don't see very often from government officials.

And I do support the demands of the editors, not least because their demand is not about themselves but it is about the question how the European institutions will be able to reach out to the public in the second decade of the 21st century.

The question is, whether the institutions want to take the lead in quality discussions on European politics, or whether they want to watch, lagging behind the stream of time for 10 years or more, bureaucratically and impersonal, distant and unheard.

Mr Barroso, please don't just "take note" of this letter, but make yourself a bold statement on a reform of the European institutional communication, which will be positive for the institutions and in the interest of all of us, European citizens and the wider public!