ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to analyse the successes and failures of the European Union’s (EU’s) institutional communication policy as a central component of its democratic legitimacy. Despite the increasing variety of the EU’s communication tools, from information portals to deliberative citizens’ panels, these often fail to reach a wider and diverse audience. By using a framework of five fundamental criteria: Reach, inclusion, responsiveness, transparency, and impact, the chapter assesses the overall effectiveness of the EU’s communication strategies. Based on insights from recent EU-led participatory experiments, such as the European Citizens’ Initiative and the Conference on the Future of Europe, the findings highlight a recurring discrepancy between strategic ambition and operational delivery. Institutional communication remains predominantly fragmented, technocratic, and insufficiently responsive to the opinions of the public. Closing this communication gap is essential to democratic renewal. The chapter argues that only a citizen-centred, co-creative process integrated into all tiers of EU multilevel governance can lead to genuine and sustainable transformation of EU communication strategies.
