Britain’s Daily Express compares two museums:
EU bureaucrats were slammed yesterday for lavishing £850,000 of taxpayers’ money on a [EU Commission] visitor centre which gets fewer visitors than a Lake District pencil museum. It has emerged that the Brussels centre attracted just over 50,000 people last year even though entrance is free. The European Commission recently spent one million euros – equivalent to £170 per visitor – moving the “attraction” to a new home, which was officially opened last month. Research shows its attendance is way behind one of Britain’s quirkier exhibits – Cumbria’s Keswick Pencil Museum. The only pencil museum in the world charges up to £4.25 to enter but still gets between 80,000 and 100,000 visitors a year….
EU Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding who provided the figures in response to the MEP’s questions, insisted: “The Commission considers its visitors’ centre an integral part of its communication strategy.“It provides an opportunity for citizens to visit the Commission at its headquarters. The centre aims to give visitors an insight into how the Commission works.”
Quite by accident, it has done just that.