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		Euro-Parliament spends £1 million on comic books Wednesday, 15 January 2003 The European parliament is launching a comic-strip book designed to "target young people" and promote the European project. Over a million copies will be published in a total of 22 languages, at an estimated cost of well over £1 million. The comic book, elaborately produced in an expensive hard-back format, purports to show how the European parliament saved the purity of European water for the people - although a covering letter from Juana Lahousse-Juarez, described as Director of Communications, admits that "the adventures related in the book are pure fiction". A typical "voice bubble" from the rather fetching cartoon heroine, Irina Vega MEP, reads "I seem to spend my whole life on the train between Brussels and Strasbourg but I'd hate to have to choose between mussels and chips, and Strasbourg onion tart!". Commenting on the launch, East Midlands Euro-MP Roger Helmer said: "It seems that the European Parliament has found its natural level with the publication of this comic book, stuffed full of self-congratulatory claptrap and Euro-propaganda. Civil servants in the parliament have clearly failed in their duty of political neutrality. I will be demanding to know who authorised this initiative, and how much of our tax-payers' money has been squandered on it".