The EU's accountants – the European Court of Auditors (ECA) – have refused to give the EU’s accounts a clean bill of health for the 15th year in a row, owing to fraud and mismanagement in the budget. Like last year, the auditors did sign off the Commission’s own accounts, saying that they accurately represented how much money was raised and spent.
SPENDING OUR MONEY AND TAKING THE PISS!
€173,000 for a luxury golf resort
€2,500 for Chairman of Porsche’s hunting retreat
€100,000 for a luxury Spanish hotel chain
‘Donkeypedia’: the blogging donkey
€80,000 for a Swedish ‘virtual city’ in Second Life
€850,000 for a ‘gender equal’ wood design centre
€400,000 on a Marathon for a United Europe
€200 The Swedish cannabis farmer
€400,000 to get children drawing portraits of each other in the name of European citizenship
€198,500 for EU puppet theatre network in the Baltics
Anti-smoking “super heroes”: €72 million to fight tobacco, €293 million to promote it
€2,100 The ‘state of the art’ rest stop for cyclists in Hungary
€15,000 for “therapeutic equipment” at luxury drug rehabilitation centre
€227,000 EU farm subsidies for a Spanish Duke and the Catholic Church
Potato-go-round Greek Potato farmers received funds to promote potatoes in Sweden.
£339,442 Promoting Irish Bar’ and ‘Beach Club’ on Gibraltar
€680,000 for “running costs” of NGOs promoting EU integration
Unspecified amount E(U)quality
Unspecified amount The Spanish fire festival in North Nottinghamshire
Unspecified amount The European Dance Caravan
€30,000 for Big Brother-style ‘diary rooms’
€40,000 for performing animal business
€2.4 million for children’s planetarium sold for €150,000
€269,100 for luxurious spa
€400,000 for videomaking festival to promote EU citizenship
€2.3 million MTV campaign “Europe can you hear me?”
€86,000 for bizarre Bulgarian ‘dialogue’ project
£77m a year just to administrate EU farm payments in the UK
€4 million for the non-existent Italian oranges
£88 million in EU farm payments for multinational banks
€41 million for inefficient European Parliament ‘information offices’
£3,220 for clowns and Morris-dancers in Barnsley
€780,000 for fraudulent Spanish olive grower
€750,000 for “circus art for a new generation”
Unspecified amount EU caravan to encourage French participation in the European elections
€7,087 to Seville’s former beauty queen
€175m to protect dangerous landslides 'goes missing' in Sicily
£62,000 in EU farm payments to Coca-Cola
€800,000 A 184ft “B of the Bang” sculpture in Manchester,
€355,000 for storytelling project to “recapture a common imaginary world”
€53,000-an-hour EU TV channel
€5.7m EU civil servants receive payout for bungled fraud investigation
€4 million for project on Europe’s TV heritage
€30 million invested in illegal hotels in Lanzarote
EU funding for 36,000 fake Spanish businesses
€3 million Ghost tobacco
In an operation named “Ghost tobacco”,
€725,000 on ‘body scanners’ left to rust in a basement
Unspecified amount The ‘Bulletin-board tender’
€12 million to cultivate the ‘land of the dead’
All the details here (PDF)
..And as from next year we will be paying billions more into the EU black hole. We have Anthony Bliar to thank for this when he negotiated away Maggies rebates, in exchange for the French agreeing to renegotiate the Common Agricultural Policy.
ReplyDeleteOf course we will be paying, but the French have as usual just given us the finger. Why ARE we sticking to this legally unenforceable "deal"? Has no British politician got the balls to give the French the finger?
We have Anthony Bliar to thank for this when he negotiated away Maggies rebates, in exchange for the ..........
ReplyDeletePresidency?
Oldrightie.. Absolutely agree with you. The CAP crap was his official excuse for giving away OUR money.
ReplyDelete15 years now. Time flies.
ReplyDelete15 years now...
ReplyDeleteDon't, I feel old after this move. This is definitely the last time I do it!
I'm wondering if there's any news on Douglas Carswells Private Members Bill.. I'm not sure how to look it up.
This has become such a fixed annual event that we should hold a party.
ReplyDeleteLawyers and accountants have told me over the years that any company or public body that acted in this way would have its responsible people up in court and the organisation closed down after 1-2 years and 3 at the very most.