Euro politicians from the Westcountry have criticised the European Commission president for spending thousands of pounds of taxpayers money on "spin and subterfuge".

Journalists' expenses will be paid if they accompany Jose Manuel Barroso on foreign trips in a new public relations drive, a report has suggested.

The former Portuguese prime minister will also have a photographer and television producer available 24 hours a day.

Under the new strategy to boost his media and political profile, he can also call upon the services of a team of four speechwriters at all times.

The move by the Commission reflects frustration that much of its work is little reported and most of its leading figures are unknown to the wider European public.

But William Dartmouth, MEP for the eurosceptic UK Independence Party in the South West, said: "The point of the European Union was to boost trade. But it has become a superstate that lacks democratic authority.

"That is why they have to resort to spending millions on spin. The EU taxpayer – and disproportionately the UK taxpayer – is paying for this subterfuge and spin."

Mr Barroso is engaged in a power struggle with EU president Herman Van Rompuy, and Catherine Ashton, the head of the new European diplomatic service.

To ward off the threat, he has arranged a State of the Union address in Strasbourg in which he will outline his vision for the year ahead in front of 736 assembled MEPs.

Curiously, MEPs will be fined if they do not sit through the speech, which is being held this year for the first time and modelled on the one given annually by the President of the United States.

The proposal caused anger among MEPs. Julie Girling, Conservative MEP for the South West, said: "This petty squabbling between unelected European officials would be laughable if it wasn't costing taxpayers millions of pounds.

"I'm in Strasbourg now and had every intention of attending Mr Barroso's speech but I'm now having second thoughts, I don't think elected members should be dictated to by unelected officials."

The new measures to "personalise" his image were revealed in a leaked letter written by Viviane Reding, the Justice Commissioner, who is in charge of EU communications.

According to a report, Mrs Reding is proposing to focus on boosting Mr Barroso's standing in what she described in her letter as "the first but certainly not the last step towards improving the communications efforts of the Commission".

The package of measures include a team of eight staff to update his website, monitoring and rebuttal of blogs criticising the EU, rapid verbatim transcripts of all the Commission president's public remarks.