5 July 2007: The EU Gets Sexy

The European Union's latest attempt to raise its profile has met with mixed reviews.

Last week the EU's executive launched a special page on the Internet video-sharing site YouTube, called EU Tube. The executive said that the page would use "new and innovative ways of informing people on the activities of the European Union."

If you're not interested in politics it all sounds very boring, but one video on the page is causing a great deal of interest. The clip in question is about the EU's support for European film makers, and features 44-seconds of sex scenes snipped from various EU-funded European films.

By midday yesterday the video had been viewed over 1.3 million times, and had received mentions in blogs and British tabloids.

Not everyone was impressed. One visitor wrote in a comment: "It was only a matter of time before the EU found a new way of humiliating itself."

Judge for yourself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koRlFnBlDH0