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(See also manufacturing consent)
"Multi-national states usually seek to fabricate a
sense of common identity among their citizens: the Habsburgs tried it,
and the Ottomans, and the Yugoslavs and the Soviets. But nationhood cannot
be invented by bureaucratic fiat. As soon as the peoples of these empires
were allowed to determine their own futures, they opted for national self-government."
Daniel Hannan MEP
The following are all funding programmes under which the EU uses taxpayers' money to further its own PR aims.
Programme: Town Twinning
Stated aim: "... to promote European integration
and foster a sense of European identity among its citizens."
Funding available: €1,000 - €50,000 per project
Programme: Jean Monnet Project
Stated aim: "... to contribute to improved knowledge
and information on the issues relating to the construction of Europe."
Funding available: €30,000 per applicant per year
for 3 years
Programme: Culture 2007 (EU arts funding)
Stated aim: "... [to] contribute
actively to the development of a European identity from the grassroots...
with a view to encouraging the emergence of European citizenship."
Funding available: €500,000
Programme: Support for European integration
activities organised by universities
Stated aim: "... to make [citizens] more aware of
the European integration process."
Funding available: €1 million
Programme: Advancing the Idea of Europe
Stated aim: "... to campaign directly to advance
the idea of an integrated Europe."
Funding available: €1.8 million
Programme: Euro - PRINCE
Stated aim: "... information and communication projects
for the introduction of the Euro... to prepare and educate all levels
of society about the new common currency."
Funding available: €5 million
Programme: Socrates II
Stated aim: "... to strengthen the European dimension
within the field of education."
Funding available: €1,850 million (no, that isn't
a misprint, that's one billion, eight hundred and fifty million euros)
See also manufacturing consent
"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can
be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices
of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies,
much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we
are subjected and in which all too often we act as willing or unwitting
instruments."
Noam Chomsky