Lee Rotherham, lately returned from a tour of Afghanistan with the Territorial Army, writes about one aspect of his new book for Open Europe on the EU’s PR budget.
Recently, Open Europe has published a mammoth piece of research, The hard sell: EU communication policy and the campaign for hearts and minds. It details in depth some of the mechanisms the European institutions, particularly the Commission, use to sell themselves and the project of European integration. This book has already been launched in electronic form, with hard copy coming out in a few days.
The problem with the subject matter, on which I worked long months with Lorraine Mullally, was that the end result was simply too overwhelmingly massive to all put into print. Some sections, in particular the annexes, had to be pruned or dropped.
One such lost element perhaps merits here putting on the record. In the UK, we are fortunate in having an alert and developed press, with a tradition of long years of critique. It is no coincidence that a pro-integrationist children’s cartoon book printed by the Commission (the infamous Raspberry Ice Cream War) was only withheld - and probably pulped - in one country, after an outcry in the national papers challenged its appropriateness in schools.
That was in Britain. In many other EU member states, the media is apparently less ready to question the manner in which the EU uncritically sells itself and its policies of ever-closer union. The result is a well-oiled PR system selling European integration. The case of Slovenia proves this point well.
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