News flash! The European Parliament has launched its election campaign materials. With unsurprisingly blue results.
It is likely that there’s more hanging on the forthcoming election than ever before (global economic crisis/EU expansion/Eurozone problemos) - so let us have a quick look at what the EU thinks sells the EU.
The brief presented to advertising company Scholz & Friends (I love the “& Friends”) was: “to draw the voters’ attention to the elections’ relevance for their own personal life and to encourage 375 Million European citizens to vote”. No, I don’t envy them their job either.
Pray tell, then; what exactly have the powers-that-be decided will encourage us to vote in June?
Chicken packaging, apparently.
(All graphics: Scholz & Friends)
And plugs.
Thankfully, though, it doesn’t end there -there is more to life than chicken packaging and plugs and the EU know it.
There’s also the eternal dilemma of laptops vs milk.
And books or satellites or tractors.
I concede here I am being a tad harsh. At least the issues these last two images are supposed to represent (balancing family and career and investment in education/farming/technology) are important, even if not done justice by the reductionist nature of the photographs.
Other issues that the EU feel will spur us to vote - as far as I can tell from the often obscure graphics - include security, genetic modification, fuel, energy and border control. And the economic crisis, let us not forget the economic crisis.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to forget the economic crisis whilst perusing the campaign materials - for it is given as much prevalence as chicken packaging (one billboard in twelve).
Scholz’s friends have, I fear, let him down.
Surely, when considering what is going to encourage 375 million European citizens to vote this would be the main - perhaps the only issue - to plaster across billboards throughout the continent. For now at least, I think it’s fair to predict that the standardisation of plugs is the last worry on most peoples’ minds. I fear it is unlikely to spur one EU citizen to vote, let alone the other 374,999,999.
Yet again, I regret to say, the EU has let itself down when it comes publicising its - often hugely valuable -purpose. Capitalising (almost a pun!) on the economic crisis, and the EU’s ability to actually do something about it, had the potential to inspire millions to vote in an election they didn’t even know existed last year.
Instead, these millions of EU citizens are likely to spend the run up to June wondering whether they prefer milk or laptops, and whose great idea it was to reduce the economic crisis to a photo of a lion and a cat. (Oh, Scholz.)
This can also be viewed on my personal blog here.
(11 votes, average: 4.36 out of 5)
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Thanks Katrina, for the best post I have read on TH!NK ABOUT IT! You get a 5 from me. (Your previous piece on Libertas was also very good).
The Scholz campaign only reinforces the popular stereotype that the EP is about boring stuff like food packaging and has nothing very positive to contribute to resolving the greatest crisis the EU has faced since its foundation.
And they are paying Scholz to reinforce this stereotype?!? I give up! What planet are they living on? Do they want to make us all feel like nerds and geeks for even trying to make the EP elections interesting?
This is an Ad campaign designed by bureuacrats for bureaucrats and reinforces the perception of the EU as being about bureaucracy. People don’t vote for bureacracies. They work in them aqnd the expect them to work. But they don’t get up about of bed in the morning dreaming about how wonderful; the packaging on their chicken is! (Having an eyesight problem, the writing is too small for me to read anyway. If they set minimum standards for font size I might just be inspired to vote!)
But the reality is that people don’t vote for a parliament, they vote for a party/candidate for the parliament - and these posters do nothing to help Parties motivate their supporters to come out and vote.
Think in a line and then look for the arguments… I see a lot of artificial critizism in your post. You don·t need to be very clever to understand that the ad with the plugs is not about plugs, but about more or less Europe. An thes, yes, labelling maybe is not the first concern of citizens nowadays (at least not mine), but what about immigration (you forgot this billboard), security or energy policy? Too easy, Mrs. Katrina.
I love this post. Got me chuckling!
For now at least, I think it’s fair to predict that the standardisation of plugs is the last worry on most peoples’ minds.
I think I’d like to challenge that assertion. It’s been mentioned that the most-overused example of EP/EC relevance to citizens’ lives is the mobile roaming cap, but the relevance is still there. Between them, those 375 million voters are likely to own as many as half a billion mobile phones, and most of them will use different chargers. The industry has actually ended up self-regulating - they’ll all be using Micro-USB from 2012, and a lot of phones are using it already (most new Nokias certainly), but if there was an EU Directive forcing a single, intercompatible charger standard for all new phones, mp3 players and digital cameras sold in the Common Market, that would be a move of outstanding usefulness and relevance to the average European. We damn well ought to push the EU institutions to spend more time on such things.
Same with chicken packaging: it might seem pointless to you and me, but there is an unbelievable amount of people in Europe who really, really care about the E421 Flavour Enancer. Look, I know it sounds ridiculous, but these people - mostly the parents of young children, though not exclusively - devote more of the mental and emotional resource to Sodium Glutamate than you have devoted to your favourite band.
And for what it’s worth, that star-shaped plug is actually a really cool idea. UK and US connectors only allow one plug orientation, the EU two-prong standard allows two, but a star-shaped or pentagonal (or hexagonal, octagonal, what have you) socket would allow for a multitude of plug orientations, which you’ll know is really important if you’ve ever tried to connect a desktop, a monitor, a printer, a set of speakers and three other devices to the same power strip.
It’s not that standardising sockets or labelling isn’t important - it is - but do we need a European Parliament to accomplish it? Such things are probably best done by inter-governmental conferences of experts and then given the force of law by international Treaty.
People look to a Parliament to provide leadership to a polity as a whole - particularly in global affairs. What contribution is the EP making to resolving the international financial crisis or the lax regulation of banks and shadow banks by the Basel 11 convention?
[...] Q: Will any of them get in? A: Not a chance. They can’t even get elected to local councils, where their supposed power base gets to vote. They weren’t anywhere near getting seats in the Estonian parliament during the last elections. As for the Europarliament - not even the majority can really be bothered to vote for that. And we have billboards about star-shaped power sockets. [...]
However, your review was excellent. Worshipful, yet respectful. I can see your doctorates are clearly in art appreciation and english composition.
Great Article! I really liked it! Thanks
While I have to disagree on some parts, but in the end this was a great post. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Доброго времени суток! Решил я тут себе мышку сменить, урывками в кантру поигрываю, поэтому брать не простую какую-нить мышку аля джениус =) а чтоб дпи дозволительно было менять шибко и чтоб боковые кнопки были, рассматривал варианты крутых мышек - типа раптора, однако они однако дорогие, вообщем выше выбор остановился на мышке Мышь A4 X-710FS-1 - у неё трапезничать боковые кнопки, кнопка смены дпи и супер-пупер кнопка это 3-Fire - три выстрела одной кнопкой! самая содержание чтобы кантры, преимущественно чтобы любителей пострелять из калаша в башку медленным ботам, рекомендую =)