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In 2007, the Dutch state secretary for European affairs lamented the narrow focus on the rules of European integration in the public debate, overshadowing the EU’s impact on citizens’ daily lives. This study compares the amount and type of news about the EU in the British, French and Dutch press during the period 1990—2003. A content analysis of Dutch EU coverage for the years 2004 up to 2006 was subsequently undertaken, which saw key events such as the EU enlargement and referenda on the constitution. The results show how Dutch EU news is notable for its domestic viewpoint until 2003. The prominence of EU news in all three countries seems unrelated to the EU’s growing authority. Besides key events regarding the integration process, the EU appears to rely on crises and rows to draw media attention. Everyday politics remain invisible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Commission's press and communication service plays a central role in the EU's dealings with news organizations. However, following the fall of the Santer Commission, even the service's own press officials admitted the organization was failing and constantly on the defensive against an increasingly hostile media. It was in this context that Santer's successor, former Commission president Romano Prodi, pledged radical reform, making the goal of a modern and professional' press service a priority. The Prodi Commission concluded that it needed a much more positive and proactive way of working. At a time when the Barroso Commission is proposing its own programme of change in communication policy, this article assesses the inheritance that the Prodi reforms left behind, with particular reference to their impact as seen by journalists from one of the member states in which traditionally it has been most difficult to communicate a positive image of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, it has been argued that, despite the absence of European-wide mass media, a European public sphere is emerging, as some issues of European relevance become debated at the same time with the same intensity and with recourse to the structures of meaning throughout the entire European Union. This article examines the media framing of Silvio Berlusconi's controversial address as president of the European Council of Ministers to the European Parliament on 2 July 2003, in which he compared the Social Democrat MEP Martin Schulz to a kapò, an auxiliary concentration camp guard. The data are drawn from six EU countries, the US, Canada and Switzerland and show that while the reporting of the speech do satisfy two of Schlesinger's three criteria for the development of a European public sphere - the existence of a Europe-wide news agenda that is part of everyday media consumption of large audiences across nation-states - the data do not indicate a European transcendence of national public spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]