EU spends £2 billion a year on propaganda
05 January 2009
Open Europe has published new research which shows that the EU is spending billions of euros a year on initiatives to promote itself and its central aim of ‘ever closer union’. In 2008 alone, it spent more than 2.4 billion euros, which is more than Coca Cola’s global advertising budget. The book, “The hard sell: EU communication policy and the campaign for hearts and minds” shows how EU information policy is geared not towards providing neutral, balanced information, but towards trying to convince people to support EU integration.
As well as a sophisticated information and communication strategy designed to 'sell' the EU and its political message, the EU also spends billions of euros a year on efforts to engender a common European culture and citizenship, with the explicit aim of increasing people's attachment to the EU project. The EU pours hundreds of millions of euros a year into think-tanks and lobby groups which promote its policies and campaign for further EU integration, and many of its efforts are directed very deliberately at young people.
Open
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