More details of the dreadful procedures that underpin the continuance of the EU itself. nb “irregularities” is an EU weasel word for “petty crimes”
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PRIVATE EYE 1216 8-21.8.08
EU-phemisms (official spokesman) “Radovan Karadzic’s capture has shown Serbia how we in the EU get results” Translation : “We did nothing for 10 years and then bribed them with subsidies”
BRUSSELS SPROUTS Despite the British government’s promises not to ratify the Lisbon Treaty until a judicial review had taken place it went ahead and signed it anyway making sure it was safely in the hands of Italian foreign officials in Rome (where the treaty was first proposed), - [actually it’s where the original treaty setting up the EEC was signed, burt never mind!-cs] before bothering to tell the public on 17 July.
However, Czech and German lawyers have still to decide on the validity of the document, which many claim is identical to the constitutional treaty rejected by Dutch and French voters in 2005. With the prospect of EU citizens being controlled by an unaccountable Brussels elite instead of their own parliamentary systems, one might have expected greater responsibility from MEPs in an increasingly powerful European parliament,
Alas, MEPs again followed another proposal by MEP Richard Corbett [Labour, UK] to give unelected staff around the European parliamentary president, Hans-Gert Poettering , the right to veto all written questions to the European Commission.
The proposal was approved by an astonishing 501 votes to 183 on 8 July, even though it limits the MEPs’ power to question the actions of dodgy commissioners. Given that the EU lost €1.4 bn in fraud and irregularities last year, a massive €33m of which was attributed to the Commission alone according to a report by Agence Europe , this seems a backward step, to say the least,
On the subject of EU budget fraud, the latest Commission anti-fraud report shows the number of irregular farm subsidy payments fell dramatically in 2007 - down to 1,548 from a steady level of around 3,200 in the previous few years.
This is good news, of course.
Or is it?
The apparent drop in irregularities is all down to a rule change quietly introduced by the Commission in 2006 which no longer requires member states to report irregularities involving less than €19,000 (the previous threshold was €4,000)
A Commission spokesman told the Eye the rule change was part of “a general simplification of the management of funds”.
The work of EU ant-fraud squad OLAF should certainly be simpler. By happy coincidence, the new rule came in as OLAF was undergoing an organisational reform, following about the ridiculous time it took to deal with cases and its general bungling.
The rules have also been quietly modified in another way: member states no longer have to report how much is recovered.
As the average recovery rate from 2000 to 2006 was just 19 percent, perhaps it’s best this embarrassing figure be allowed to disappear from public view.
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