2 December 2021

On 2-3 December 2021, the Department for European Policies held the autumn session of the Club of Venice, which brought together, in presence and remotely, over 80 institutional representatives and public communication experts from all EU countries.

Vincenzo Amendola, Undersecretary for European Affairs, opened the session.

The Club's plenary sessions, held twice a year, aim to intensify collaboration and exchange of best practices between the Club's members – responsible for institutional communication of EU Member States and candidate countries – and the European institutions. This year the event took on special relevance because it coincided with the 35th anniversary of the Club of Venice, of which Italy was one of the founders.

On the first day, the morning session was dedicated to the Conference on the Future of Europe, addressing in particular:

• Strengths and weaknesses of the communication campaign;
• Inter-institutional cooperation;
• The participation of academia, civil society and international organisations/associations;
• Transparency profiles.

In the afternoon, public communication was discussed in relation to COVID-19 and the management of recovery plans, namely:

Narratives, asynchronies, collaborative behaviours and strategies, role of governments and EU institutions, lessons

• learned from different pandemic waves;
• Health prevention (future cooperation with scientific communities);
• Civil society, media and social networks;
• Public opinion survey.

The following day, 3 December 2021, a focus on climate change was instead held around the following themes:

• Communicating deadlines
• Promoting risk awareness and desired behavioural standards
• Soliciting cooperation
• Using communication to stimulate effective monitoring and realistic roadmaps
• Encouraging collaboration between communicators and the scientific community.

In addition to leading the G20 presidency, Italy has been a partner of the United Kingdom in the preparation of COP26 on climate change in Glasgow. COP has always been a fundamental appointment for the Club, also from the point of view of strategic communication and public diplomacy.