Twinning Bulgaria: Formez Activity of Assistance to Information and Publicity

The activity of assistance aimed at the staff committed to information and publicity concluded. The activity referred to the interventions co-financed by the Structural Funds of the Ministry of Work and Social Policies and the three intermediary bodies, namely the Ministry of Education and Science, the Employment Agency and the Agency for Social Assistance. The training activity was carried out under an Administrative Twinning Project with the Ministry of Work and Social Policies for the purpose of providing assistance to the Managing Authority (the Directorate for European Funds and international programs and projects) in the management of the Operational Programme “Development of Human Resources”. Under this mission, Formez experts were required to draft the guide-lines on the obligations of Information and Publicity for the beneficiaries of the European Social Fund and to update a paper on the European Union communication strategies in light of the two most recent European Commission communications “Debate Europe – The Citizens’ Forum” and “Communicating Europe through Audio-visual Media”. The communication "Debate Europe”  which was launched on April 2nd, aims at enhancing the experience gained with the Plan D "Democracy, Dialogue and Debate” and to augment  citizen participation in the EU decision-making process. Under this action, the EU Commission has forecasted a range of future actions for the promotion, among citizens from each social class, a general and permanent debate both at national and Community level about the future of the European Union. Thus, between 2008 and 2009 the European Commission intends to co-finance various project on civil society both at EU and national level by publishing invitations to submit proposals. The communication “Communicating Europe through Audio-visual Media” of April 24th, announced interventions aimed at ensuring improved covering of EU affairs concerning TV and radio channels as well as multi-media platforms. This will encourage audiovisual experts to establish and participate in the European audiovisual networks. In particular, this will propose a network of TV channels to integrate the radio channel network which was already activated on April 1st, 2008. The European Commission was also committed to enhancing the quality of the audio-visual raw material which already provides audiovisual experts with free qualifications and which will increase its video production to outline and explain EU policies.