Margot Wallström believes the Internet and social media have strengthened democracy in both the EU and the United States.

Question: How is the Internet transforming politics in the European Union?

Margot Wallström: It has been a steep change with the Internet because never before—not with printed media or television—has one individual been able to do mass communication. Before, you needed the medium; you needed television or access to radio. But today, through the Internet, one individual could do mass communications. And so it’s a completely different scenario communication-wise.

Communication, to me, is a tool for strengthening Democracy. We are not there to sell something. We are decision makers. We are politicians. We are elected in the European parliament, etc. In the parliaments, you need to make sure that communication is used to strengthen democracy, to engage better in dialogue with voters and with citizens. And for the first time you can do that very, very broadly. You can invite people to comment, as we did for the first time on the new chemical legislation outreach. We’ve had more than 7,000 responses - very detailed, very well-crafted, most of them. It was amazing to see that, when you open up that opportunity, people want to participate. They can. They are capable of it. They are much more demanding of course. They want to judge by themselves. So it means a little more difficulty for journalists, for example, because people might bypass the journalists—they want to follow the debate themselves directly online or make up their own minds.

Question: How do you evaluate Barack Obama’s social media-based outreach?

Margot Wallström: He did it masterfully, of course. He managed to not only raise money for his campaign but, this time, from many individuals which made him less dependent on big donors like the oil industry. He also did it using social media to organize: not only send the message, but to organize events and mobilize the voters as well. This was a way to say, “Well we can meet and have a party there,” or “We can have a rally that night” or “We can do information sharing,” or what have you.

He used it to the full potential, not only sending his political message but also mobilizing people—and I think this is what we can learn. And he did it through a simple message that everybody could understand. I’m not sure that it would work exactly like that in Europe, but I think we can learn from this—to have a simple message that people can understand and take to their hearts. So there are a number of things where we can definitely share experiences, and say, “This is something we could do as well,” but also differences–money being one. Money does not play the same role in European elections. You don’t have to do that much fund raising to be a candidate.

Recorded on: July 10, 2009