"I am just following orders"

On October the 19th I posted a Comment on Margot Wallstoms blog

The EU's de Clercq Report 1993 devised initiatives to ensure that:

"...European identity must be 'ingrained in people's minds' as a 'good product' using marketing techniques and that certain social categories, particularly 'women and youth', should become 'priority target groups'. More controversially, it suggested that newscasters and reporters must themselves be targeted, they must themselves be persuaded about European Union...so that they subsequently become enthusiastic supporters of the cause."

This was quickly rebutted by Margot Wallstroms Moderator with

Anoneumouse: The de Clerq Report contains interesting theories about communication. The reality is that it is simply not possible to 'target' newscasters and reporters to persuade them that the EU is a 'good thing'. All you have to do is read the European press on a daily basis to see that coverage is sometimes fair, sometimes unfair, sometimes pro and sometimes anti European. There are hundreds of accredited journalists in Brussels who attend the Commission's press briefings every day but that does not stop them criticising the Commission whenever they want to.

So what does the new EU Deputy Propaganda Minister to the UK tell us in The Times today

I don't even love Europe.

Rather than lie low like his predecessors, he intends to embrace the initiatives as set out in the EU's de Clercq Report

So what is Mr Reijo Kemppinen going to do.

He has taken on extra staff to change the debate by arranging conferences and seminars, sending teams of press officers out to speak to regional newspapers, and setting up EU information centres around the country.


As Hans Fritsche discovered "just following orders" is no defence.

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