Tweet Your MEP: a new direct democracy tool is in town

Yesterday I was privileged to attend a meeting about the Citizens’ Consultations with a keynote speech from Viviane Reding, Vice President of the Commission. As a discussion about citizen interaction within Brussels policymaking, it was the perfect venue for the announcement by Toute l’Europe of their new website Tweet Your MEP, a tool they developed in cooperation with Europatweets.

Even now there are still some Twitter skeptics around in public affairs. ‘What is the point?’ they ask, ‘surely it’s not as if the MEPs ever reply?’ Well actually some do… But Tweet Your MEP is here to encourage and open up dialogue even more. Each MEP has a profile through which they can be directly tweeted and then reply. It aims to be a host for direct dialogue between MEPs and citizens. The website has an interactive map and thematic search. So new Euro-commenters can find their MEP geographically or the more experienced by which policy area they are interested in.

With its bright and clear design the website should be very accessible. It will be launched in French, German, English and Dutch and a translation feature will make sure that all 27 languages are able to use the site. So far so good, you never know, maybe this tool will help change the way MEPs communicate and show people that they are listening? Either way we will be following with much interest. Log on for the launch at 2pm on 22^nd September and see if Tweet Your MEP will live up to our expectations.

Rosalyn