Here is one of the big issues facing the EU: how do you successfully communicate laws and policies to more than 500 million citizens in 23 official languages?I shall take as my example alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It is particularly topical this week given the recommendations on the subject by Lord Justice Jackson’s civil litigation costs review. The EU undertakes a huge amount of work in ADR, probably nearly all unknown to most solicitors. This is true of so much of Europe’s work, and represents the great disjuncture between the institutions and the citizens they are trying to serve. (In this particular example, the matter is not helped by the fact that ADR is bundled along with other so-called consumer affairs in the directorate that deals with health. It is therefore difficult to find for the average citizen, who could be forgiven for thinking that ADR would be dealt with along with justice matters.) I was interested to see that Lord Justice Jackson finds that even UK schemes appear to be not well known to UK judges and lawyers, and recommends a serious campaign and authoritative handbook on ADR.

My attention was drawn to a very interesting report published recently by the European Commission on the use of ADR in the EU. Only aficionados will read all 500 pages, but there is fascinating data along the way: Germany is the country with the most ADR schemes (247), followed by Italy (129) and Spain (76). The UK comes fourth with 43. However, the data on the number of schemes need to be properly interpreted, because some countries, for instance Germany, have decentralised their schemes, whereas the Netherlands has 44 different consumer schemes gathered up into one body. It appears that the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Scheme is by far the largest ADR scheme in the EU, with more than 100,000 cases dealt with on average per year.

The vast majority of the ADR procedures are free of charge for the consumer, or of moderate costs below €50, and are mostly decided within 90 days. The number of cases in the EU has increased over recent years: from about 410,000 in 2006, to 473,000 in 2007, to an estimated 530,000 in 2008.

The European Commission has published two sets of recommendations in relation to ADR: one in 1998 for those schemes where a third party proposes or imposes a decision to resolve the dispute (such as arbitration), and one in 2001 for those schemes which involve consensual settlement procedures where the third party facilitates the resolution of a consumer dispute by bringing the parties together and assisting them in reaching a solution by common consent (such as mediation). The commission has also supported the development of a code for mediators.

So keen is the commission on ADR that it has set up, together with the member states, a network of European Consumer Centres (ECC-Net) as a tool to have better informed and educated consumers, and to help them get the appropriate redress in case of a violation of their rights as consumers in cross-border transactions. They advertise themselves as being able to solve questions like ‘who can you turn to if you have a problem with a product you bought in another European country?’ The member organisation for the UK is the UK European Consumer Centre, run by the Trading Standards Institute.

Maybe you knew all this already, but I didn’t. Our tax pounds are going on a series of very worthwhile schemes to help citizens. But almost no one knows about them. I come back to the question I raised at the start: how do you successfully communicate laws and policies to more than 500 million citizens in 23 official languages? In particular, how do you do so through the haze of a political discourse where the EU is being blamed and ridiculed on a daily basis? Of course, the EU could do a million times better in selling itself, and journalists could occasionally change the lens through which they view the EU from ‘there go the lunatics again’ to ‘this is rather interesting and worthwhile’. But I believe that it is our governments (and I am referring to all of them, not just the UK’s) that are not serving us well. They are contributing a gigantic amount of our money and energy to promote many good things at EU level, including access to justice. But because they want to distance themselves from the EU to serve their own immediate interests, they are effectively wasting the money, because they see no advantage in boldly advertising EU initiatives which may help us.

My plea is that when the government considers and implements Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals, they at least include the EU’s ADR initiatives in any future proposals for a serious information campaign and authoritative handbook as recommended by him.

Jonathan Goldsmith is the secretary general of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, which represents more than 700,000 European lawyers through its member bars and law societies