Europe - accounts unapproved for 13th year?

[jtaylor]

I hear on the news that the European accounts will be unapproved again for the 13th year??

How can they possibly get away with this? They're spending OUR money, and have a duty to account for it with a sensible degree of accuracy....

Corrupt? It appears so.
Claiming outrageous expenses? Apparantly.

Where are the morals of our elected politicians, and more importantly our unelected civil servants who ultimately administer this stuff??

J

[J.R.]

... and people ask why I voted 'NON' in that referendum years ago !

[cj]

And I think of the hours our treasurer at pre-school spends working out the books when we'd have legal action taken against us if it wasn't right. And the efforts we go to to make sure that the small amount of money we do have is spent wisely, plus what is given and not claimed back by committee and parents!

[Mid A 15]

This site is frequently a real eye opener re the machinations of the EU.

http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/

Julian you are right to flag this. The UK (i.e US as taxpayers!) is a net (and gross) contributor to the EU so it would not be unreasonable to expect our elected representatives to be asking searching questions as to exactly what is happening to our contributions and, in the absence of a satisfactory response, witholding them if necessary.

Pigs might fly as they say!

[J.R.]

I would draw Honourable Members to the reply I made some time earlier.

(3 above.)

[Ajarn Philip]

This site is frequently a real eye opener re the machinations of the EU.

http://www.eureferendum.blogspot.com/

It's an eye-opener if you believe everything everyone tells you in the pub.

Yes, the EU is corrupt. No, it's not a surprise. I didn't know that the European accounts had been unapproved for umpteen years. I'm not even sure what 'unapproved' means. Who approves the absurd 'legitimate expenses' of British MPs? We do, probably (I still pay my taxes), even if we don't know it.

As for the American political system... well, I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Yes, we should be asking questions, questions we should have been asking for the last 30 years or more, but let's not use this as an excuse to revert to the insular, elitist and separatist attitudes of the past, which is at least in part responsible for the problems we face today.

[J.R.]

I would draw Honourable Members to the reply I made some time earlier.

(Now 5 above.)

[midget]

And what about the Lords shenanigans with their "expenses" and they don't have to produce receipts.

[Mid A 15]

Do two wrongs make a right?

Just because our own MPs have their snouts in the trough it doesn't mean we shouldn't question the EU situation.

The fact is, unlike many EU countries, we are net contributors not recipients so should surely be entitled to some influence and accountability for what we fork out.

[J.R.]

Hmmmm.

The words to Europe might include 'Stuffed' and 'Get'

(Large Yawn !)

[jhopgood]

This does not surprise me as a few years ago I saw for myself how profligate the EU can be.

I was invited to go to Guatemala as part of an EU paid consultant team, to look into what they call pymes, (small and medium sized business).
The EU had a budget of €6M to give to these companies in Guatemala and the consultants were supposed to come up with the best way to do this.
Cost of consultancy €200,000.
I was along because the none of the consultants had ever been to Guatemala before and I had worked there for 3 years, so knew what it was about.
The whole project took 10 days, 8 of which was spent by the rest of the 3 man team, in Nicaragua, where they had a commercial privatisation project on the boil. I was left on my own to chat to my contacts and present the recommendations locally.
I believe a report was sent to Brussels and I am pretty sure the consultants were paid. A lot of money for 10 days work, and not very hard work at that.
It all seemed to be ruled by a rigid bureaucracy which stipulated that if the report was not done, then the €6m would no longer be available for the Guatemalan Pymes as it was included in that year's budget.
The local EU office seemed to work quite hard, although I have never worked in an embassy so have nothing to compare it with.
There seemed to be an awful lot of paper pushing and reporting to Brussels, who in their turn did not seem to understand the local situation and were mainly concerned with keeping the paper moving away from their desks.
In my opinion, the whole thing was a complete waste of time and money, but having made my opinion known, I was never invited back.