International

Government propaganda should be strictly separated from other television programmes, argues SP Member of Parliament and media spokesman Jasper van Dijk. Minister of Education and Culture Ronald Plasterk said during today's parliamentary question time, in answer to a question from Van Dijk, that he would be looking into the matter of government subsidies in this area. Parliament itself has the power to alter these rules, however, and Van Dijk is concerned also by the waste of taxpayers' money involved in the lame and meaningless government campaigns

“In some cases subsidies have been used for undisguised government propaganda'" says Van Dijk.. "The programme 'De Eurometer' shown on the private channel Max, for example, stressed the alleged advantages of the introduction of the Euro, with hardly a critical voice heard. In two editions of EenVandaag, shown on state TV, we were told how useful the European Union was to the Netherlands, but not that the programmes had been paid for with government subsidies. This is simply unacceptable."

Almost €12 million in government subsidies has been spent on TV programmes over the last two years.