The European Elections Information Programme in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The United Kingdom’s EC offices were alone among the Nine’s national Commission and EP press and information offices in having prior experience of involvement in an information campaign designed to influence voters by, at a minimum, heightening their awareness of and knowledge about the EC. In 1975, the offices were involved in distributing factual information about the EC during the British referendum campaign on continued membership of the EC. Then, they had provided neutral and objective information, and left pro-EC organizations like the European Movement to put across some of the more positive and favourable views they held of British membership of the EC. They had deliberately refrained from overt involvement in what was seen as an internal political process because such involvement seemed inappropriate to them. The approach adopted then was regarded as correct and successful. Experience gained in 1975, coupled with officials’ perceptions of what would be an appropriate role for administrators in another information campaign, influenced the way in which the EEIP was presented in the United Kingdom. Previous experience, contemporary events and institutional constraints, largely in the shape of standard practices and operating procedures, militated against both wholesale institutional innovation and the adoption of presentational techniques risking Government disapproval.