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“Genuine communication by the European Union cannot be reduced to the mere provision of information.” Is this how the EU got a Yes to Lisbon from the Irish? asks Mary Ellen Synon in the Irish Daily Mail, reprinted in the British one.
Ireland and the other eurozone countries might be suffering savage spending cuts, but the EU self-publicity budget thrives: in 2008 the Open Europe think-tank calculated that the EU was spending at least €2 billion a year on ‘information’.
Much of it bent, which is to say, propaganda. The commission actually admits that its information is bent. One of its publications declares: ‘Genuine communication by the European Union cannot be reduced to the mere provision of information’.
Perish the thought! Reducing communication to mere provision of information might mean that journalists got a handful of leaflets rather than a stay at the…
Hotel Manos Stephanie (‘the Louis XV furniture, marble lobby and plentiful antiques set a standard of elegance rarely encountered,’ the hotel brags, and so it should since the rate is listed at €295 a night for a single room).
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My trouble is, I don’t know how valu-able/eless the Euro is. Is that a large amount, or do you need a lot even to buy simple things?
That’s a little over 400 dollars a night, so very nice hotel.
Well, even Michael O’Leary took time out from his usual occupation of telling governments of all kinds to f**k off to express support for the yes vote the second time around. (He supported a no vote the first time). Heaven only knows how he was bribed or threatened to make this happen.
“Heaven only knows how he was bribed or threatened to make this happen”
Not hard to work out, really: his business depends on the goodwill of the EUrocrats. It is not hard to image how quickly he’d be shafted if the many many layers of bureacracy started to make life difficult for him.
The fundamental problem, in this as in so many cases, is that the State (the EU in this instance) simply has too much power.
The spam-bots just get better and better, don’t they?
Actually I agree with the statement – as there is no such thing as “unbiased information”. Even if it is “just facts” there is the matter of “which facts” are reported.
However, that does not mean I support a vast propaganda campaign from the E.U. (following the example set by the American government long ago – indeed as far back as the Woodrow Wilson Administration).
On the contrary – the E.U. should not have an information budget at all, as (as they freely confess themselves) such a budget “can not” be restricted to nonpropaganda.
Indeed let us take the next logical step – the E.U. is another layer of government, one which the various nations of Europe would be better off without.