To the surprise and bewilderment of locals, European Movement Ireland flash mobbed the streets of Galway city to celebrate Europe Day 2009.

After mingling with the public at three busy Galway city spots, Shop Street, Eyre Square Shopping Centre and High street, the 30 volunteers, at the blow of a whistle, froze amongst the passers-by who were left looking slightly bemused and unsure what to do.

After 20 seconds and upon shouting "Europe Day 2009" and revealing t-shirts with " Got questions on Europe?", the volunteers spread out into the crowd to talk to people about Europe. They took a fresh, straight talking and jargon free approach to explaining what the EU does, took questions from the public and attempted to debunk the myths that often cloud the debate surrounding the EU and what it does.

The purpose of this event in Galway was to stimulate debate amongst people on the street and get the facts and truth about Europe across, without a political agenda. The volunteers from European Movement Ireland were met with a range of questions from people simply wanting to know what the EU does, and from people with serious concerns over fishing quotas, CAP, and the Lisbon Treaty.

Executive Director of the organisation, Andrea Pappin commented: "The survey done after the Lisbon Treaty referendum showed that one of the biggest problems people had with the Lisbon Treaty and European Union in general was that they didn’t understand what it does and how it could improve their lives anymore. We want to take the fear from people, explain not only what does the Lisbon Treaty do but also the work of the EU and how does it affect our everyday life and answer any Europe related questions people could have.

People are naturally afraid of things they don’t understand, and so it has been great to hear today from so many people commenting on how refreshing it was to be given the opportunity to ask simple questions and to get straight-forward jargon free answers."
To watch footage of our activities on YouTube visit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atDl_yQOte0
If you would like to know more about European Movement Ireland you can visit our website at:

www.europeanmovement.ie