EU presidency no help to image of Spanish Prime Minister

Recent weeks could be deemed as the most difficult for the Spanish Prime Minister since he began his second term nearly two years ago. With internal public support waning as the economic recession deepens and the Spanish EU presidency withering, the socialist premier is in an unprecedented time of crisis.

On 20 January, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero appeared confident and at ease at his debut presentation at the European Parliament. With a broad social pact to boost the economic growth and an enthusiastic call for the electric car, his speech was well-received by his European peers. Further, Commission president José Manuel Barroso strongly endorsed his policy guidelines.

Back in Spain, the knives seemed to remain sheathed. The ruling opposition party, PP, following the agreement on the Spanish EU rotating presidency signed with the governing party PSOE, did not criticise the main points of the Spanish premier´s six-month agenda.

But Davos became a turning point for what Spanish and international deemed as unprecedented crisis for Zapatero.

“The World Economic Forum (WEF) has come to show that when it comes to institutional communication, the Spanish EU´s rotating presidency is still very green,” a Spanish journalist based in Brussels said.

In these kinds of summits, special guests, among them the Spanish prime minister at the helm of the EU, are typically treated in an extremely distinguished manner. So, picture this if you will: Zapatero seated during a panel discussion between the Latvian President and the Greek Prime Minister, (the weakest European players at the moment) and the Central Bank President, Jean-Claude Trichet.

Some Spanish voices, like the centre-right newspaper El Mundo, seized the opportunity to portray Zapatero as one of three failing students called upon to explain himself to the headmaster. The Spanish EU presidency should have presented Zapatero in a more attractive way.

Troubled time at home

At his return from the Swiss resort, Zapatero announced an increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67. This new measure prompted strong opposition among the public, counterparts in Zapatero’s own socialist party and the Spanish trade unions. The latter group planned demonstrations for the last week of February against this proposal.

So far the Spanish government has avoided clashes with trade unionists, so reforms of the rigid Spanish labour market have not taken place. Despite recent polls situating Zapatero for the first time beneath Mariano Rajoy, the leader of PP, it is time for the Spanish Prime Minister to present a reshape of pensions and labour law. It may not be an instantly popular move, but well explained, it would be understood in the long term.

Mistrust in Europe

After a week of downward trends in the Spanish stock market and remarks made by Spain’s outgoing commissioner for economic affairs, Joaquín Almunia, who compared Spain to Greece, a great consternation has spread around Europe.

Therefore the Spanish government has begun a crusade in London to clean Spain’s image and rekindle investments in Spain.

Confronted with this scenario there is no wonder that several European voices were raised arguing Zapatero might not be in the best position to set binding economic goals and call for corrective measures in those countries not compelling them. But let’s not be too unfair.

By the same token, would the United Kingdom’s premier be more entitled than Zapatero to talk about financial services when practically the whole of its banking system has been nationalised? Not to mention the fact that the Spanish entity Santander is fast to become the leading bank in the UK.

Since the ideological and methodological fundamentals of European policy are designed by the European Commission, let Zapatero be judged on his role at the helm of the EU and not just on his performance as the prime minister of a country in economic disarray.

Bad time to hold a rotatory presidency

The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the decision of President Barack Obama not to travel to Spain for a summit with EU heads of state pencilled for May has created a juncture where “one positive economic figure is followed by two or three negatives ones,” according to a high-profile member of the European Commission. Everything seems to have come together in an unfortunate way for Zapatero, as if to test the success of the six-month rotating presidency.

Another deciding factor in Zapatero´s role in the European arena are the UK general elections next spring. The British Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, will not make it any easier for the Spanish premier if, as it is likely to be, he becomes the next British Prime Minister. Zapatero is aware that some of the policies toward an integrated Europe, such as the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European citizen´s initiative or the reform of the financial supervision, should be in place before Cameron takes office.

At the end of the day….is it really worth it?

The so far non-outstanding EU rotating presidency with only but a few minutes of glory for Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero may no longer compensate the risk of a crash, both at an internal and at an European level.

The Spanish government is conscious that its EU presidency won’t bring any benefits to Zapatero’s popularity on the national sphere. The semester has just begun and the Spanish public seems only to receive an echo of criticism from the international and home media.

According to a poll published by the Spanish left-wing daily El País , 77 percent of Spaniards call themselves sceptical about the benefits of Spain’s EU presidency.

If this lack of sparkle repeats itself and future EU rotating presidencies go unnoticed, it may not take too long for European members to dispel them.

In Haiti, social networking ecosystem links victims, reporters and aid agencies

Even as an earthquake shook the Caribbean nation of Haiti and levelled its capital, bridges were being built.

Social networks enabled by the Internet connected on-the-ground reporting efforts and authentic voices of the Haitian people with an active local and international audience, enabling people around the world to contribute to rescue, relief and recovery efforts in a horizontal fashion.

This ecosystem proves that the use of social networking tools, added to the traditional toolbox utilised by reporters, can facilitate a bridge between news media audiences and people impacted by tragic circumstances like earthquake, war or tsunami.

For people on the ground, social media networks provide a way to connect with emergency workers who are trying to provide aid and resources where most needed. Online social networks can also lead impacted citizens to news reporters or bloggers with established audiences looking to add authentic voices to their coverage (and vice versa).

Giving the inhabitants of Haiti access to social network communication utilities cannot but help them to help themselves. Further, participative citizens at a time of deep public concern and trouble.

Thanks to both SMS and the Internet, platforms like Twitter, Facebook and the crisis-mapping group Ushahidi (“testimony” in Swahili) have been flooded with practical information about logistics and requests for help. Ushahidi in particular is transforming the way aid agencies conceive sharing and responding to information about urgent needs in the aftermath of this devastating earthquake, defends Ms Waugaman.

Providing people with a public voice is also a good example of how established media outlets can indeed bridge the gap between the public and news-gathering — as long as principles of truth and accuracy always remain present.

Social media background

Social networking has spent recent years migrating outside high-tech business arenas like Silicon Valley to reach the mainstream. The 2010 World Economic Forum in Davos included a discussion on the growth of social networks, among a number of other technology focused panels.

Social networks are two-way communication channels that enable us to do what we have always done: communicating, connecting and building relationships. The growing influence of these web tools, though, has raised numerous discussions about its leveraged implications for individuals and society.

The role played by the new social networking in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti brings to the table another major issue: the importance of SMS and social networks in crisis coverage.

A new way for eyewitness reporting

Some of the first footage illustrating the wake of the earthquake in Haiti did not come from big news organisations or TV broadcasters, but from civilians on the ground capturing video with mobile phones.

With the collapse of the traditional channels and the landlines of the country badly damaged, social networks accessible via SMS soon became the primary means for reporters and aid workers trying to keep the information flowing between Haitians and the rest of the world.

A few years ago this new way of keeping citizens informed about natural disasters would have been unthinkable. Development of technology has made it possible, as has fast adaptation by people in the less developed areas of the world.

The same platforms are valuable tools for tools for reporters to describe what they witness instantly and in real time. Nevertheless some media professionals had not even embraced them before getting to Haiti.

“I had a hunch that it could be a powerful reporting tool but I’d never really tested it out,” said Guardian correspondent Ed Pilkington, who was reporting from Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the earthquake.

Facebook and Twitter appear to be custom-made for journalists reporting live during a rescue operation or a drive around the scene of a disaster in the back of a pick-up truck. In comparison to traditional reporting, in which most of the information does not see the light of day and ends up confined to a journalist’s notepad.

“Twitter unleashed all and put it out there as I was seeing it,” Pilkington said.

“It allows you to do the immediate description, the instant thought, the undigested gut reaction to awful sights that were in front of me.”

Social networking sites can work side-by-side with traditional storytelling methods, the British journalist said, saying he would “vote for them as a tandem” and not as competitors.

Aid agencies: New role

Aid agencies cannot fail to take advantage of the power of these new tools.

Adele Waugaman, head of the UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, believes “aid agencies should also participate with a different approach and help to redefine what could be the use of technology in a disaster.”

Instances in which crowd-sourced information has become an excellent means of organising a good response to a humanitarian emergency have already been identified in the report, New Technologies in Emergencies & Conflicts compiled by the UN Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership.

Use of innovative tools for one-to-many communications are crucial for response and delivery of practical and useful information during a crisis.

“It used to be that information-sharing in disasters was largely looked at as a one-way information transfer from relief groups to affected communities,” says Waugaman said.

“Increasingly, through, technologies that allow for crowd-sourced information, affected communities themselves are becoming a critical source of information in disaster response.”

However providing people with these tools and co-ordinating their use in effected areas should lead to a change in the structure and the way relief and aid organisations have traditionally operated and.

“The World Food Programme’s Global Partnership for Emergency Communications with the Vodafone Foundation and the United Nations Foundation is providing specialised training that specifically addresses the unique needs of information and communication technologies ‘first responders,’” Waugaman said.

Trust in social networking

Information is valuable only if it can be trusted.

For Adele Waugaman, verification of crowd-sourced data “remains a challenge to bringing this kind of innovation to scale.”

What needs to be clarified in the future is how to overcome the risks that accompany amplification of real time, unfiltered information. As a proof of what this challenge represents CNN, which seems to be the media organisation with the most material on the disaster, published a mashup of crowd-sourced of information making clear that CNN has not been able to verify it.

Ushahidi could be a good example to follow. Its founders are working to develop a service called SwiftRiverthat validates crowded-source information surrounding a crisis, be it press releases from aid agencies or tweets of ordinary people.

Social networking spaces are so powerful when it comes to sharing immediate information that journalists may become part of the story they are telling. This fact definitely triggers a riveting debate in which the interests of news organisations could clash with moral issues: Should journalists deployed to the scenario follow their human ethics or pursue their media objectives in search of the most impacting story?

During the Haiti aftermath it was quite amazing to witness media professionals had been acting as an intermediary for aid workers and impacted locals pleading for help through Twitter or SMS.

For as much as the chroniclers would have liked to have grabbed hold of their notebooks or cameras they could not avoid being active participants helping among all the debris. Nothing short of a natural human instinct.

Not to be forgotten

While the earthquake’s impact in Haiti is one of the most widely told stories in the world at the moment, it is just a matter of time until interest wanes and disaster footage is shelved in the archives section.

The number of journalists and reporters deployed to the damaged country is already scaling down. Soon only major news agencies will provide the day-to-day information from the struggling Caribbean state.

As repeatedly announced by world leaders and international organizations, what really matters are long-term consequences. Its is not an exaggeration to state that Haiti will have to wait at least 10 years to announce its recovery. Who will talk in the future about the reconstruction of Haitian public institutions? How about the needs of hundred of thousands of people expected to be relocated to rural areas?

As it all unfolds, social media led by SMS and Internet can play a crucial role