EP officials often complain, that people don’t communicate with them (and don’t care about the whole EP). So they’ve made some projects to boost communication up (after all, this is one of them; and Mark Mardell writes about another, weird one ). BUT, when someone needs not very publicly accessible info, it seems to be quite a problem.
To bow you in- some time ago, I have got the dope on EP’s marketing activities from one of the European Parliament Information Office employee- there were some strange steps in the procedure of selecting the marketing company, which should be responsible for EP PR activities, including last (and this years) elections.
So, I decided to use this friendly- named service of Correspondence with Citizens Unit ( I did not really expect, I will get some confidential info, the name of the company would be enough- must be one of the big paneuropean agencies):
“An electronic mailbox is provided for your questions, requests for information and proposals to the European Parliament.
Subjects raised must relate to matters within the European Parliament’s sphere of activities. Answers will be sent within a reasonable period.”
Naturally, I did not tell them about an info I already have. Just asked few rather general questions about last and planned election campaign, who is responsible, how much will it cost, whether they cooperate with some company, etc. I did mention I am part of this project, sometimes it might help people bustle things up.
What I got was a confirmation, that my question was delivered a they will deal with it as soon as possible.
After a week with no response (I know people in there must be very busy all the time) I decided to send same questions to the press attache of European Parliament Information Office in Slovakia, Ms. Ivana Janíková Stavrovská. (I really enjoy communicating with bureaucratic organizations.) Anyway, Ms. Janíková Stavrovská replied me the very same day (I was quite surprised). I was also surprised when I read, that she forwarded my questions to my favourite Correspondence with Citizens Unit. Never mind, that I wrote her, I had already done that.
Dull story goes on. Few hours after her first email, I got another one from Ms. Janíková Stavrovská. This one said, that my question had not been registered in the Correspondence… Unit, and that she will answer my question until the end of this week.
Guess what? No one has replied. They still have few hours left.
(16 votes, average: 3.69 out of 5)
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That’s why I always make direct contact with the person of interest and her/his assistants. It may take more time to find who is responsible or who must have the answers for a particular issue, but it’s worth it. I have rarely had a rejected email or a lack of any answer. It’s important to be punchy and give them a reason to answer you. This initiative has proved quite a good one for that matter.
well, i have thought about direct contact, but was not able to find anybody who could be connected with this matter, no office, body, person responsible. it impossible to find any info about this matter, and it should be, because it is part of budget and “public” money spending.
Still no reply?
I noticed that this is not the first time you mention the topic. Why have you chosen it again?