The European Commission is this year set to pump around eight million euro into information campaigns on the EU Constitution.
The money will be allocated according to various factors, including how much citizens know about the EU and how the Constitution will be ratified in a certain member state.
The Commission argues that the extra funds will help national governments to raise awareness of the new treaty among their citizens.
And the funds should be spent on different projects - like publishing the text of the Constitution or explanatory brochures for the citizens - "everything but the propaganda", according to Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, the Commission's spokesman for the communication strategy.
Two different pots
There are two different funding pools available, one of five million and one of three million.
Five million euro is to be distributed on the basis of the member states' population -Germany is to receive around 900,000 euro while Malta is to get about 5000 euro - and sent out to the Commission's offices across the EU.
The governments can ask them for assistance in distributing information.
"We will not give them money but the tools for spreading the information. It will be our products, not theirs, so there's no conflict in that," Mr Dowgielewicz commented on a possible bias on the part of the governments communicating the Constitution while also trying to gather popular support for it.
In what is dubbed a "second wave" of allocation, three million euro is to be distributed among the member states according to special criteria - whether these criteria are met will be judged by the Commission.
The quality of the projects proposed to inform citizens, the level of knowledge citizens have about the Constitution and how the text is to be ratified in that country will be factors taken into account.
The countries whose citizens know least about the 465-article treaty should be eligible for more support.
The most recent Eurobarometer survey suggested that the lowest awareness of the Constitution was found in Cyprus (35% of people have heard of it), the UK (50%) and Greece (51%).
Member states ratifying the Constitution by popular poll are also expected to receive more from the common coffers.
"If a country holds a referendum, it is in a completely different situation, as it needs to provide information to wider network of stakeholders, more so than in case of countries adopting the Constitution by parliament", the Commission's spokesman pointed out.
Spain is the first of the 10 countries to hold a referendum on the Constitution at the end of the week (20 February).
The Commission has spent about 1.3 million euro in the country, with a significant part coming from last year's budget.
By: N. Peter Kramer
