EU

The President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy is the most connected world leader, mutually following eleven other world leaders including many European heads of state and government. He started his Twitter activity at the end of October 2010, nearly a year after his ascension to the top EU post. Most of his tweets cover speeches he makes or events he takes part in. Although most of his tweets are in English, he often tweets in other European languages to connect with European leaders. The tweets mostly regard general statements on current affairs, but there are also more personal messages to commemorate particular events or congratulatory messages to other foreign leaders. The tweets are generally written by his media team, but every now and then he tweets personally namely his passion haikus in Dutch.

The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso is not personally on Twitter, however the @EC_live account has tweeted his news, speeches and statements since September 2009. Most of the tweets are live tweets of statements or speeches made by Barroso on a vast array of topics such as the European economy and thus aim to provide a detailed overview of the President’s priorities, actions and whereabouts. Although most of the tweets are in English, a few of them are in French and one In German, when for instance the original comment was made in that language.

The European Commission has had a Twitter Account since mid-October 2011 which is managed by the Commission's communication department. The Commission is one of the rare governmental organisations that effectively use Twitter lists. It maintains lists including all official EU Twitter accounts and has created a list entitled RealWomenInScience with 500 members for its "Science: it's a girl thing!" campaign. The account is quite active with 11 tweets/day covering Commission events and speeches made by EU Commissioners. One fifth of the tweets are retweets of other institutional accounts such as @EC_live, @DigitalAgendaEU and @EU_Consumer. A quarter of the tweets are @mentions of EU commissioners active on Twitter such as @NeelieKroesEU, @JanezPotocnikEU, @VivianeRedingEU, @SiimKallasEU, @KGeorgievaEU, @APiebalgsEU and @MalmstromEU. The tweets are in English only and sent primarily through TweetDeck.