Citizenship: Europe goes... EUTUBE !

When the European Union opened its own video-site in YouTube, named EUTube, nobody could foresee that the site would register more than twenty thousand visits per day.
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However, videos on the agricultural politics of the EU and on road security are hardly seen, yet a clip with erotic scenes cut from several European films have become a huge success. Entitled "Film Lovers Will Love This", the video shows parts of European films with images of couples having sexual relations.
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Some consider the video celebrates European cinema, others more critical consider it "ponographic". As did british member of the European Parliament, Chris Heaton-Harris, who has affirmed to the BBC that the European Commission is wasting taxpayers money. "To show 44 seconds of soft porn in the Internet is not a brilliant form of improving the image of the European Commission", he considered. Expectedly, critics from Poland were even more severe. A member of the League of the Polish Families party has accused the EU Commission of using "immoral methods" to promote itself. European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said to the BBC that a wave of claims had come from Poland, in particular on one scene of the video. Polish conservatives allege that it is immoral to include a sex scene between two men, but the Commission does not comment on whether there is such a scene in the film. Irritated with what he called "an almost religious attack on the important cultural diversity within the European Union", Selmayr affirmed that the sex scenes come from films which have received awards, and that the Commission is proud of its rich cinematographic heritage. "The European Union is not a stronghold of bible readers, we believe in liberty of speech and in artistic creativity", the EU Commission spokesman added. In the launching of the video, last friday, the vice-president of the Commission, Mrs Margot Wallstrom, said: "It is very important for the Commission to be able to use all the possible means available, to communicate with European citizens".
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You can also watch another nice movie entitled "Joy" or another less glamourous yet frightening on climate change. Or this one.

Politics: What has Europe done for us?

Regional policy is undoubtedly among the main achievements of the European Union. It is one of the EU's achievements presented in the new ‘Speak Up Europe’ campaign which was launched in February 2007 by the international organisation European Movement with the support of the European Commission.
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Central to the campaign is an animation based on an excerpt from the Monty Python Life of Brian film. The animation What has Europe ever done for us? is combined with a series of around 300 local, national and/or European events across the EU. The aim is to offer a complete debating experience to a large number of EU citizens, in particular those which aremore 'euro-sceptical'.
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If you have any doubts about what the European Union has achieved, whatch this video.