Holy week with the EU: an insane EU propaganda video

The iDNES.cz news server and other Czech media have brought us a trailer of a new movie funded by the national branches of the top EU institutions. The movie is called "Holy Week With The EU" and it describes the EU from the viewpoint of high school students preparing for the GCSE (final) exam.

The trailer is just stunningly repulsive. Fortunately, over 90% of the Czech citizens seem to agree with me. The hugely negative reaction has led the film director to demand that the trailer shouldn't be aired anywhere because it was created by amateurish cherry-picking by some jerks among the EU officials.

However, whether cherry-picking took place or not, these 6+ minutes surely appear in the movie and probably show the spirit of the film. And it's bad enough.




If you don't understand Czech, I must tell you how they speak. They speak in perfect, official, standardized Czech and their articulation is very clear. At the same moment, they try to be cool by extremely cheap, suggestive, sexually oriented remarks. This combination sounds horrible.

But what seems most disgusting to me is the careerist approach by the main "hero" of the movie. One could perhaps argue that the EU differs from the Third Reich and from the USSR in certain subtle and not only subtle respects. However, this guy doesn't differ from the functionaries of Hitler Jugend or Komsomol. A self-centric, shallow, sleazy bootlicker who instantly buys anything from the sources that may help him in his career.

At the same moment, the movie seems to paint a gloomy picture about the contemporary high school curriculum which arguably seems more tendentious than what I remember from my times as a (dissident) teenager during communism.




Here is the video:



Fast translation:

Girl I: We're lacking a commander here a bit. Can't you give us an advice? If you have already accumulated those experiences...

Boy: About what?

Girl II: Probably beverages...

Girl I: With the GCSE!

Boy: What is on the ticket?

Girl I: Institutions of the EU.

Boy: This is my cup of tea! Madam will surely lend me her notes. Yes, my head is pretty large but I can't store everything in it! So... We will show it visually. ... Ann will be the European Council. She will take the highest place. Hop. What isn't in the head must be in the hands.

Imagine a simple scheme, a male figurine. A head, heart, and two legs. We will omit the other organs today [he is saying it towards Girl II who has crush on him]. Ann will be one who is thinking. She will stand at the highest place. She will represent the head and the brain of the whole European Union, the European Council. It determines the priorities of the EU as a whole. For example, it stands behind the authorship of important documents such as the Treaty of Lisbon.

[Girl III arrives, also horny.] And you will be the European Commission. The heart not only of mine but of the whole European Union. Its motor, if you will. The Commission is the driver of integration and it proposes new regulations to be debated by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament.

[1:29 Stop this. Another scenery.]

Maverick boy: Do you want to make a career in bureaucracy?

Boy: Why not? I surely want to work abroad, at least for a while. And the work for the EU is a good opportunity.

Maverick boy: You want to build the EU by a spade, right?

Boy: Why?

Maverick boy: Do you think that they're waiting for you with open arms?

Boy: If you can speak languages, you may try to get a job in the institutions of the European Union. People are sending applications to the EU in all the official languages and they have to receive an answer in the same language. And that's where native speakers are needed.

Maverick boy: And it's a child's play for those who have studied languages, isn't it?

Boy: Not only that. Look at eures.cz where you find lots of jobs across the EU. And not all of them are for students and alumni.

Maverick boy: Everyone would be looking down his nose at me.

Boy: I don't know why. For example, Germany has a clear shortage of native workers in certain sectors. And they're happy to get some foreigners.

Maverick boy: Because they don't have to pay them equally much.

Boy: No, they have to pay the same.

Maverick boy: Maybe using the same currency.

Boy: Where did you get so much negativism?

Maverick boy: I am not negativist. I am just not used to okay anything just because they bring it right under my nose. I am using my brain. I want to know what are the benefits of our membership. For example, I am interested in the history, e.g. about the Second World War.

[Long break. Kids memorizing and dating.]

[3:25, staircase] Girls: Relationships. They are complicated in general.

Boy with beard: On the contrary, they're the simplest things. The European Union is the largest trade block in the world. It has the second most important currency. And it has signed trade and partner treaties with most countries in the world.

Another boy: For example, the EU is promoting its interests within the World Trade Organization or inside G20 which includes the most developed countries of the world.

Boy with beard: And the EU is also organizing summits. EU-Russia, EU-USA, EU-China...

Girl I: And Russia is an important partner due to its resources.

Girl II: And the U.S. are the largest trade partner of the EU while China is the largest importer into the EU.

Boy with beard: But the union is also focusing on less developed countries and within its development policies, it spends more than EUR 7 billion.

Female teacher: Radek [boy with beard], come here.

Classmates: Good luck.

Committee boss: So you drew the process of integration and expansion of the European Union. So what will you tell us about it?

Boy with beard: The European Union was created with the intent to prevent new wars between neighbors that would culminate in the Second World War.

Narrator: In 1951, the economic and political integration of the European countries began. It was supposed to bring permanent peace. There were 6 founding members of the initial community, the European Coal and Steel Community. The Cold War between the West and the East was the dominant factor determining the atmosphere of the 1950s. In the late 1950s, the integration was getting deeper. New communities were founded which, in 1967, were merged to the single European Community according to the merger treaty.

[Credits.]