| In a special focus on the European Constitution, we expose the European Union's plans for propaganda to influence referendums across Europe, detail the effects on public services and outline the Constitution's main points... |
The coming campaign on the European Constitution
WORKERS, APR 2005 ISSUE
The European Commission is to spend eight million euros especially earmarked for information campaigns on the EU Constitution. Is anyone left doubting that this is taking our money to pay for propaganda?
Look at what is being planned. The Commission has two different funds. Five million euros will be spent according to member states' populations, so Germany will get around 900,000 euros, Malta about 5,000 euros. In a second wave, 3 million euros will go to member states according to the Commission's three criteria: the quality of proposed projects, people's level of knowledge of the Constitution in any particular country, and whether parliament or people take the decision.
The countries whose people know least about the Constitution would get most. In the most recent Eurobarometer survey, the lowest awareness was in Cyprus (35%), Britain (50%) and Greece (51%). States deciding by referendum will also get more. Us again! The Commission has earmarked more than 650,000 euros for us, but the government is frightened to accept the money. "We don't want any of this money spent in the UK. It would clearly be utterly counterproductive," an official said. It pledged that not a single penny of EU money would be spent in the campaign.
But it can't stop the Commission, which has already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds here on a pro-constitution campaign of seminars, leafleting, theatre activities and celebration days about the Constitution being held in schools, libraries, think tanks, local government and pro-EU pressure groups. It gave 10,551 euros to Hull University to raise awareness and understanding of the Constitution, 25,000 euros to Liverpool Hope University College to help school pupils and students to find out about the Constitution, 38,318 euros to the Foreign Policy Centre for a conference on the Constitution, 48,601 euros to the Institute for Citizenship in London for a series of seminars, 27,291 euros to Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency, to fund a conference called Europe Alive with Opportunity, 18,233 euros to Europaworld, a Welsh company, to set up a website to educate people about the Constitution and to send information to secondary schools, and 42,005 euros to the Federal Trust, a think-tank, to promote EU enlargement, including the production of 100,000 information cards. The Trust's advisory board includes Blair's policy adviser Andrew Adonis.
The Commission will continue to fund the Europe Direct Information Network here, at 840,000 euros a year, to raise local and regional awareness of the Union's policies and programmes, the Spring Day for Europe to celebrate the Constitution in our schools and will spend more than 1,000,000 euros a year on a network of think-tanks and pressure groups that promote the EU state, including the International European Movement, the Union of European Federalists, Friends of Europe, Young European Federalists, the Centre for European Policy Studies and the European Policy Centre.
A Commission spokesman said, "We have every right and obligation to promote information about our activities, and we will continue doing that. We are not going to shy away from our duty."
Trade union opposition has hardened with the creation of Trade Unionists against the Constitution. Its pamphlet, Trade Unionists say No, can be downloaded from www.tuaeuc.org.uk.
