"One quarter of Germans don't think Germany is benefiting" from membership of the Union, a senior European Commission adviser told the gathering, while 33% of UK voters are "strongly opposed" to the EU, he added.
Another senior Commission official, speaking in a personal capacity, said that although Eurosceptic parties have "limited resources", they have "creative minds" working to leverage new media to get their message out.
The official noted the success on YouTube of UK Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan's recent speech at the European Parliament. Hannan's address has been viewed over 2.25 million times, and was originally spread virally on blogs. This strategy is common among Eurosceptic groups, but the EU executive and "established parties" are conversely "too slow" to react to new media, said the official.
Sweden's Pirate Party was also used to illustrate the agility of small, single-issue parties. A controversial decision by a Swedish court against online file-sharing site Pirate Bay this month led to membership of the Pirate Party skyrocketing from just a few thousand to almost 30,000 in the space of a few days (EurActiv 22/04/09).
Dietmar Halper, director of Austria's Politische Akademie der ÖVP, reported that in Austria, the European Union suffers from "bad press" in the traditional media. The workshop heard that the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, with a daily circulation of almost three million, had a strong anti-EU stance which "makes the Daily Mail look like a moderate paper".
Polish Eurosceptic parties also benefit from the support of powerful media groups, reported Pawel Swieboda, director of the 'demosEUROPA' centre for European strategy in Poland. Radio Maryja, backed by the "traditionally Eurosceptic" Roman Catholic Church, has "more than five million listeners" and wields "significant power" in Polish politics, Swieboda said.
Professor Paul Taggert of the University of Sussex said Europe "needs to be more visible". The only way opinions will change is for politicians to "lead public opinion, not just react to it".
Thomas Bernad Stehling, director of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in London, added to this criticism of Europe's representatives by singling out the Commission's permanent representations in EU capitals for not being sufficiently aggressive in "promoting Europe".
