- Heads-up for all your Eurosceptics out there - Move to 'sell' EU to the French:
"A 40-point plan to explain Europe to the French has been submitted to the government... The proposals include a European stamp, a medal of honour, exams on Europe for schoolchildren and an EU sports event."Let the accusations of EU propaganda commence! (Although before you get too excited, it would appear that this report was not funded by the EU and its author, Michel Herbillon has never, as far as I am aware, held an EU office. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
3 Comments:
Is that point particularly important, It is if you will forgive me a red herring to suggest that only employees of the EU embark upon EU propaganda, are we to assume that the French government or parliament are not interested in promoting the EU.
Having been trounced in the referendum those who want to make sure that it does not happen again will certainly be interested in selling the EU to the French people. Just as the British government intend or intended to use serious amounts of public money to promote the EU in Britain in the run up to the referendum.
Mr. Jean-Marie Bretillon Is after all
Member of the Commission of the cultural affairs
Member of the delegation of the French National Assembly for the European Union
Vice-president of the Mission of information common on the creation of a French television of information to international vocation, that is apart from other duties he may have.
EU propaganda is propaganda no matter who pays for it, in this case perhaps it is the French taxpayer.
Let us suppose that out own Denis MacShane came up with such a plan, would we say oh! That’s ok then let us spend our own tax money on EU related propaganda, or would we ask for a similar amount to be spent on the other side of the political argument. You really cannot separate those who work for the EU and are paid out of public funds with those also paid out of public funds within their own countries who are keen supporters and promoters of the EU.
So, in other words, the EU is responsible for the actions of all those who support it even if it has had nothing directly to do with them or their actions?
And any campaign promoting the benefits of the EU (of which even you will occasionally admit there are some), even if devised and funded solely by a sovereign national government which believes it to be in the national interest, is EU propaganda? By the same logic you could claim that this blog is EU propaganda, despite the fact I am a private citizen and have never received a penny from it (no one's donated yet, the bastards...)
Does this also mean that, even if it's in the national interest, in the interests of impartiality we shouldn't do something which the EU supports or that would help the EU, merely because it would help the EU?
(Oh, and Denis MacShane has thankfully now returned to the backbenches - he won't be devising anything, instead it'll be his replacement as Europe Minister, Douglas Alexander - assuming Tony lets him, that is...)
No the EU is not responsible for the actions of all those who support it, but the outcome is the same who ever pays for EU propaganda.
The point about propaganda is it only gives one side of the argument, the question that membership of the EU is in the national interest is a political one, not all would agree that it is a given fact. Would the French people for instance think the EU was in the national interest if the French lost the input from CAP, if Turkey was a member if the they were flooded by polish plumbers, if their contribution were to double, in fact if the EU was not so France friendly. Therefore to embark on a long-term information policy to "Europeanise" French public life, is a political decision, as such there will be those who wholly disagree with the enterprise.
Mr Herbillon`s report blames the defeat of the "Yes" vote in the referendum on the failure of information campaigns, and says politicians, the media and teachers must all share part of the blame for the defeat of the "Yes" camp. In other words he and his parliamentary committee now want to use public money to ensure that their campaign has an overwhelming advantage in the future by changing the way the French people view the EU.
It goes without saying that the EU is not an independent organisation that exists in a separate sphere of public life, it could not exist at all without the agreement of members of parliaments in the member states. But those people do not have a monopoly on what is and what is not right or what is or is not acceptable to the people, although they would like to think they do. They are all the EU Elites who belive in the future only being possible through an overarching government, who belive the nation state is on the way out, they have a political objective which has nothing to do with the wishes of the people they represent. The French people have already said they do not accept the EU Constitution, for what ever reasons they have collectively said to their politicians no, this is unacceptable to us, Mr Herbillon`s parliamentary report is all about ignoring what the people have said and making it acceptable.
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