On the 6 May the European Commission held a conference about Media Freedom, bringing together 400 participants to promote the importance of media freedom in the Western Balkans and Turkey. Entitled ‘Speak Up’, the conference coincided with World Freedom of Press day.
Of course, the idea that the media in Europe is without manipulation is wildly wide of the mark. The BBC is the first institution to come to mind here. Its constant pro-European reporting, especially when Labour were in power and during the Treaty of Lisbon debates (when Labour rigged the voting to avoid controversial topics and had instead had entire debates dedicated to the words in Article 191 “in particular combating climate change”) revealed what has already been widely reported, that the BBC has incubated an inherent left-wing bias.
Of course many of the ‘right-wing’ papers have little to celebrate in the way of reporting accuracy either, but when they are reporting what researchers in Westminster have spent months investigating, then Brussels should really stop trying to defend itself and its statist agenda.
Talk to the people inside the EU institutions, and they freely admint that plans exist for national tax harmonisations and integration of health services, but admission of this publicly is political anathema and the people who say admit this are easily silenced. The Commission has also resorted to spending our money on ‘debunking’ what it says are ‘myths’ on its internet homepage. The myths it wants to ‘correct’ include The Times reporting that Brussels issued regulations that Banana’s had to be straight. Unfortunately, the Commission did issue regulations regarding the straightness of bananas. Commission Regulation (EC) No 2257/94 from the 16.09.1994 clearly states in Annex 1 of the regulation that banana’s must be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature”.
Or how about the Daily Mail reporting that Eurocrats wanted to introduce a common European CV format? Unable to deny this, the Commission defends itself simply by arguing that it would not be enforced, just suggested because discrimination could occur if you did not use it.
Both this and the bananas regulation clearly shows the problem. The Commission, from European culture, feels a need to regulate to such a detailed and minute level, that they even dictate how a CV is written and whether a banana has the appropriate curvature. The problem with this is that it destroys human creativity, market competition and human ingenuity. The best people get jobs sometimes because their CV’s are the best! A standard format might help those who did not show ingenuity, but for those who take a risk, and innovate, the result would be failure.
Then there was the claim that a short film promoting the EU with the title “Let’s come together” was soft porn. Anyone who has seen the film can not really deny this (see for yourself at : http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,492 131,00.html). The softly smutty message and usage of sex to try and sell the EU is a sign of how low Brussels can go. Interestingly, it shows how disconnected Brussels is as well. In an era when the Health Directorate-General is warning about the rising numbers of sexually transmitted diseases across Europe, and as there is growing awareness of the psychological consequences of pornography, the Media arm of the Commission went about promoting promiscuity.
The list of course is endless, but issuing daft and pointless regulations and then trying to justify them will win no-one’s respect. The European media is right to ridicule the Commission; it is just a sad reflection that instead of listening, the bureaucrats continue as before, becoming more detached from the incredulity of the public of Europe’s nations.
