The German Foreign Ministry's Civil Society Project Dialogue on Europe. A Decent Response to the Challenges of Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century?

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 14/20 ("gut"), College of Europe, language: English, abstract: This essay examines the public diplomacy response of the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO) to the euro crisis by a case study of the civil society project 'Dialogue on Europe'. The author argues that with the implementation of this project, the FFO has taken an important step towards a contemporary, 'integrative' diplomacy. Its eventual added-value however remains to be seen, depending on the final political relevance of process results. In the following, the author will firstly explain the key concepts of this essay - public diplomacy, 'integrative' diplomacy and civil society as a diplomatic actor. The author will then describe the main idea and concept of 'Dialogue on Europe'. Subsequently and will relate the project to the key concepts of this essay and finally critically evaluate the FFO's approach to include civil society as a part of its public diplomacy.One of the negative consequences of the euro crisis starting in 2008 and the austerity policy that followed was the decrease of trust in the EU and among certain EU countries. Especially Germany's image had suffered, mainly in Southern European countries. There, it is at best considered as principal architect of European fiscal discipline, often however as the villain responsible for impoverishment and demolishing of the welfare system in many European societies. Therefore, claims came up that German diplomacy must improve and that Germany had to develop a new style of interaction. This call for a better and differently shaped way of, in fact, public diplomacy comes at a time when diplomacy in general is facing a period of transition, marked by the rise of new actors, as from civil society.