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05 February 2010 |
 Documents published by the European Parliament's budget committee have revealed a final sum for the amount spent by the Parliament on advertising the 2009 European elections: €21.4 million, writes Stephen Gardner.
For this the European taxpayer got, in best Brussels jargon, "3D installations in the member states", "diversified outdoor billboard operations" and "extensive dissemination" of advertising in countries with historically-low turnouts. Unfortunately, many voters remained blissfully oblivious and turnout plumbed a new historical depth of 43 percent. So, €21.4 million well spent.
Prior to the election, much hype was given over to "eParticipation": boosting the vote via Facebook, Twitter and "edgy" blogs authored by eurocrats. But a review by a project called Momentum (itself funded by the European Parliament) found that these online activities were particularly "disappointing" and had little or no impact on the vote. And the standard excuse that lessons will be learned for the future cannot be used because, as Momentum points out, online fads change so quickly that Facebook and the like will be obsolete when the next European poll comes around. |
