(Strasbourg) – "Communicating Europe" with a language that the public can understand; making the EU Parliament a "transparent house", that has no secrets for its citizens. The EU institutions are trying to "fill the gap" between itself and the citizens of the member states: some initiatives mostly online are already usable. For instance, the plenary session of the European Parliament, that will take place in Strasbourg from today until 22nd October, can be watched live on the institutional website, at www.europarl.europa.eu. In addition to the live session, one can see the agenda and all the working documents. Also on the European Parliament’s website, one can consult articles and releases on the issues that will be discussed by the MEPs (Lisbon Treaty, economic and environmental issues, the Sacharov Award to freedom of speech). One of the published texts is focussed on the work of the plenary assembly, expressed in a "conversational" tone as a sort of "weather forecast". "Sunny sky with scattered rain all over the political week in Strasbourg it says, for instance -. Sunny spells on the budget on Tuesday, with a possible rain of 300 million euros on the milk-dairy industry and one and a half million euros in energy investments".
