The truth about the EU accounts - £6 billion spent in error in 2012
I took part in a debate on BBC Radio Manchester last Thursday at 9am in which one of the issues raised was the EU accounts.
It was suggested by the UKIP representative that the EU has not even filed accounts for many years, which is nonsense as they have indeed produced and filed accounts, while the Lib/Dem representative said that the accounts had been signed off but the Court of Auditors had raised concerns about how national governments spend money. This is true as far as it goes but gives an incomplete impression of the scale of the problem which the auditors have repeatedly found with the European Union's accounts.
The truth is that for the past nineteen years the EU accounts have been signed off but qualified by the Court of Auditors who expressed serious concerns. They have indeed found issues with how EU money has been spent by member governments, and those governments do need to sharpen up their act, but that is not the only problem the auditors found and the EU institutions are certainly not off the hook.
I realise that for many people other than those who are fanatical about Europe, saying "Please read the audit report on the EU accounts" sounds about as attractive as "please stick your hand in a tank of Piranha fish."
However, in my opinion the introduction to the most recent report on the accounts by the President of the Court of Auditors is not that hard to uderstand, nor written in incredibly boring language, and if you take a quick look at the report here, just reading the President's introduction will make you one of the hundredth of a percent of the British electorate who understand the truth well enough to understand what is really going on.
You will then be able to recognise if you hear a candidate trying to fool you, whether it's a kipper or other Eurosceptic trying to suggest there are no accounts filed at all or a Europhile trying to pretend there are no problems with how the EU handles money. Which there most certainly are.
The most recent report of the European Court of Auditors has found that the EU failed to properly account for nearly £6 billion in 2012, of which British taxpayers' proportionate share is £832 million.
They found that 4.8 per cent of the EU’s £117 billion budget in 2012 - £5.7 billion - was spent in “error”, on projects that were either tainted by fraud or ineligible for grants under Brussels’ rules.
By "error" the auditors do not necessarily mean that the whole of this money went on fraud or waste, but they do quite explicitly say that it should not have been spent because it was not properly justified under the relevant legislation and rules.
EU bureaucrats were accused of “shambolic” mismanagement when the report was published, with Conservative MEPs suggesting it appeared as though Brussels thought it had a licence to 'Carry on Squandering’.
The EU spending watchdog found that supervision and control of Brussels spending was, quote, only
“partially effective in ensuring the legality and regularity of payments."
and that
"All policy groups covering operational expenditure are materially affected by error,”
according the Court of Auditors, as you can read here.
They concluded that:
“For these reasons it is the ECA’s opinion that payments underlying the accounts are materially affected by error.”
It was suggested by the UKIP representative that the EU has not even filed accounts for many years, which is nonsense as they have indeed produced and filed accounts, while the Lib/Dem representative said that the accounts had been signed off but the Court of Auditors had raised concerns about how national governments spend money. This is true as far as it goes but gives an incomplete impression of the scale of the problem which the auditors have repeatedly found with the European Union's accounts.
The truth is that for the past nineteen years the EU accounts have been signed off but qualified by the Court of Auditors who expressed serious concerns. They have indeed found issues with how EU money has been spent by member governments, and those governments do need to sharpen up their act, but that is not the only problem the auditors found and the EU institutions are certainly not off the hook.
I realise that for many people other than those who are fanatical about Europe, saying "Please read the audit report on the EU accounts" sounds about as attractive as "please stick your hand in a tank of Piranha fish."
However, in my opinion the introduction to the most recent report on the accounts by the President of the Court of Auditors is not that hard to uderstand, nor written in incredibly boring language, and if you take a quick look at the report here, just reading the President's introduction will make you one of the hundredth of a percent of the British electorate who understand the truth well enough to understand what is really going on.
You will then be able to recognise if you hear a candidate trying to fool you, whether it's a kipper or other Eurosceptic trying to suggest there are no accounts filed at all or a Europhile trying to pretend there are no problems with how the EU handles money. Which there most certainly are.
The most recent report of the European Court of Auditors has found that the EU failed to properly account for nearly £6 billion in 2012, of which British taxpayers' proportionate share is £832 million.
They found that 4.8 per cent of the EU’s £117 billion budget in 2012 - £5.7 billion - was spent in “error”, on projects that were either tainted by fraud or ineligible for grants under Brussels’ rules.
By "error" the auditors do not necessarily mean that the whole of this money went on fraud or waste, but they do quite explicitly say that it should not have been spent because it was not properly justified under the relevant legislation and rules.
This so-called ‘error rate’ in Brussels spending was up from 3.9 per cent the previous year, according to the auditors. It means that for the 19th year in a row, the European Court of Auditors have refused to give the EU’s accounts a clean bill of health.
EU bureaucrats were accused of “shambolic” mismanagement when the report was published, with Conservative MEPs suggesting it appeared as though Brussels thought it had a licence to 'Carry on Squandering’.
The EU spending watchdog found that supervision and control of Brussels spending was, quote, only
“partially effective in ensuring the legality and regularity of payments."
and that
"All policy groups covering operational expenditure are materially affected by error,”
according the Court of Auditors, as you can read here.
They concluded that:
“For these reasons it is the ECA’s opinion that payments underlying the accounts are materially affected by error.”
Comments
A welcome change in these UKIP distorted days.
A European living in the UK
Goodness only knows that the unvarnished truth raises enough concerns which need attention without the need to sensationalise everything.