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Use of Facebook in EU policy-making, now an exciting prospect

Issued : Wednesday 10 March, 2010

The concept of meaningful e-democracy looks set to be kick-started in Europe.

In response to an oral question, the Commission announced they want to make it possible to collect signatures online for inputting into EU policy.

This is an extremely exciting and innovative approach to policy making.

The Citizen's Initiative formed part of the Lisbon Treaty where if one million signatures are collected by EU citizens and we will see a policy proposal on the matter.

The fact that the Commission are committed to having this facility online is something I strongly welcome.

The nuts and bolts of how this will exactly work will have to be fleshed out and debated before coming into force.

Campaigns such as the cervical cancer vaccine on Facebook in Ireland will now be possible on an EU wide basis and the potential for citizens to engage directly in EU policy

The level of debate we have about EU issues in Ireland is poor. However if people realise that submitting a signature online is all they have to do to have an input then are morel likely to become engaged and perhaps the communication barrier between Brussels and home can be broken down."