Britannia Radio

27 July 2009 2:26 PM

One people, one state, one Europe. And you're paying to push it.

This isn't the worst of it, but it is bad enough. 

I give you just one example of the hundreds of millions of euros of taxpayers' money spent every year on pro-EU propaganda.

This fellow on the left is Captain Euro ('born Adam Andros, the only son of a famous European Ambassador'), meant to be a superhero. He was invented by a firm of  'corporate vision strategists' on the orders of the European Commission. He stars in animated films paid for by taxpayers' money and which are broadcast through the internet and television. 

The official line is, 'Captain Euro is the symbol of European unity and values.'

    The villain opposing him is, naturally, the evil Dr D. Vider -- get it, Divider? Dr Vider is described as 'a ruthless speculator' which in Brussels code means anybody who supports the kind of free market economics the British do best and the French hate.

    Captain Euro is tripe. But the propaganda drive he represents is no joke. 

A report just out today from the Swedish thinktank Timbro gives 25 pages of details on how the European institutions spend hundreds of millions of euros each year on what they call 'communication,' but anyone else would recognise as pro-EU, anti-national propaganda. 

None of it is information, all of it is taxpayer-funded marketing and advocacy for 'an ever closer union.'

    We already know of course about the vast budget the Communications Directorate at the Commission has for propaganda. This year the amount allocated to 'DG Communication' is €213m (£184m). 

But as the Timbro report discloses: 'The total cost of the EU's communication efforts, however, is much larger than that. 

Each DG [Directorate General at the Commission] has earmarked part of its budget for advocacy efforts.'

    DG Economy, to take a good example, will this year devote £6.5m for, among other things, marketing the alleged excellence of the single currency.
    

Another example is a publication called 'Investing in our common future -- the budget of the European Union,' which is a kind of happy-clappy explanation of how big an effort the EU makes to monitor the budget. 

Thing is, the publication makes no mention that the European Court of Auditors has year after year refused to sign off on the accounts. 'As late as 2008, the Court found that 11 percent of the €42bn (£36bn) approved in 2007 under the EU's cohesion fund should never have been paid.' 

But the EU's 'communication' publication doesn't mention that.

    And on it goes, all of it taxpayers' money doing nothing but pushing the 'more Europe' line that voters have rejected in every country in which they have been allowed a vote.

     Another example: for the period 2007-2013, the cultural 'Youth in Action' programme, 'to promote young people's sense of belonging and help in efforts to lay the foundations for a common European identity', has a total budget of €885m (£765m). 

   The European institutions are now using taxpayers' money to set up radio networks, television news services, to fund pro-EU thinktanks -- and to train and give prizes to journalists, which just shows some of us never turn up our snouts at a trough, no matter how politically tainted. 

Finance for the European Journalism Centre, a training centre, was €1m (£860,000) last year alone. 

And you might have seen Euronews on television. 

What you didn't see was any declaration that this year alone, the EU bureaucrats will give it €10.8m (£9.2m).

     In 2008, a programme called 'Communicating Europe in Partnership' was awarded €88m (£76m) to allow it to promote 'active European citizenship and a common identity.' 

This fits in with the purpose of euro-propaganda as defined as long ago as 1992 by one euro-enthusiast author: 'To promote the idea of European citizenship.' 

    Every opportunity is taken to spread the message. 

As the Timbro report shows, even the financial support the EU gives to school milk -- the EU has to get rid of all that excess milk somewhere -- comes with the obligation that the school displays at the entrance to the school canteen a large poster showing a European Union flag and text saying that the milk is subsidised by money from the EU. 

If the school refuses to display the political poster, the milk is withheld. 

Everything from free fruit to free concerts are getting the same compulsory propaganda treatment.

   On top of that is a worrying list of all the 'pro-Europe' allegedly 'independent' or 'civil society' groups that are getting millions from EU institutions. They include the European Movement, and the Centre for European Policy Studies, which describes itself as independent, but which, according to Timbro, received €6.1m (£5.2m) in support from governments and EU institutions in 2007 alone.

    And on and on the list goes. You can find the details at www.timbro.se All of the millions are taken from taxpayers, and all of it with a single aim: one people, one state.
    Which is an aim with a very European pedigree in propaganda, though we are used to hearing it in the original German.