Neil Kinnock, the Vice-President of the European Commission, is shocked to discover that most Europeans have no idea about how the EU spends their money. A new Euro barometer poll shows that the largest group believes that most of the EU budget goes towards paying officials, organising meetings and maintaining buildings.
In fact, such administrative costs account for only 5 per cent of EU spending - about the same amount that Brussels spends on humanitarian aid and development support for the world's poorest countries. The largest part of the budget - 44 per cent last year - goes towards subsidising farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy.
Mr Kinnock is in no doubt about who is to blame for the public's ignorance - and needless to say, it is not the Commission.
"It is reasonable to say that, when most people depend on the press for information about the EU, the false impressions about EU spending must mainly be the result of inadequate reporting by the media," he said.
Most EU citizens are at least aware that the Commission exists, although the report does not tell us how many have heard of Mr Kinnock. Almost a third of Europeans have never heard of the Council of Ministers - the body representing memberstates that ultimately makes all the decisions. And the Committee of the Regions - a forum for regional and local politicians - has impinged on the consciousness of only 29 per cent of citizens.
Irish voters are better informed about the EU than most Europeans and 75 per cent of us believe that EU membership has been "a good thing", compared with just 4 per cent who say it was "a bad thing".
Campaigners for a Yes vote in the forthcoming referendum on the Treaty of Nice will be pleased to learn that most Irish people support the enlargement of the EU to include new countries. But support for taking more EU decisions by majority voting remains lower in Ireland than elsewhere in the EU.
The news that few Europeans understand the EU comes at the start of a great debate about the Union's future that will culminate in a new treaty in 2004. Europe's political leaders are staking out positions in the debate and powerful interest groups will make sure they have their say.
The EU has launched a web site (www.europa.eu.int/ futurum) to encourage citizens to take part in the debate. But if some of the most recent messages are anything to go by, the politicians have little to fear from this gesture towards openness.
Much of the debate on the site concerns which languages the EU should use, and Hans from the Netherlands, a regular contributor, believes he has the solution - make English and Latin the official languages of the EU. An Austrian correspondent informs us that he used to favour closer European integration but now opposes it because the EU allows excessive cruelty to animals.
A British contributor predicts that, 50 years from now, Europe will not only be united but will rule the world.
"The civilisation of Europe will be installed all over the barbarism of the rest of the world, creating a much more equal and successful planet," he writes.
Pieter, a Belgian living in Germany, looks even further ahead and makes an equally optimistic prognosis.
"Even when there seem to be problems over problems, I think that in 100 years history will call the European adventure one of the greatest in the history of mankind! I would like to leave you with the words of John Lennon: `Everything is gonna be alright'," he writes.
Few visitors to the website have anything to say about the issue at the centre of the real debate about Europe's future - how to reshape the EU to make it more democratically accountable.
So when EU leaders meet in the Belgian royal palace at Laeken in December to decide how the debate should continue, the agenda will almost certainly be determined by the few who really understand the EU - the political elite that runs it.
To be fair, European integration is of its nature a complex process that depends on an elaborate network of laws and regulations. But few of those involved in running the institutions make much effort to use simple, clear language to explain their role.
Those who benefit most from the public's ignorance may be the national politicians who cheerfully blame "Brussels" for unpopular measures they have themselves approved.
As one senior diplomat told me during the Nice summit, "It's supposed to be bewildering; otherwise the citizens might understand it."
I think he was joking.
