Britannia Radio

They say the devil is in the detail!  Well, here are some details of 
the inner workings of the EU Commission which the British press 
generally is too lazy to report.
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PRIVATE EYE 1232    20.3- 2.4.09
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
While happy to waste EU taxpayers' money to boost its megalomaniac 
building plans, the European Commission has avoided the usual 
regulatory demands that go with them.

Thanks to an EU directive, the commission is exempt from all direct 
and indirect taxation, with the result that, unlike anybody else in 
Belgium, EU institutions need not pay any property, regional or local 
taxes.

Now, with plans to build a vast complex of glass towers in the Centre 
of Brussels to create "the second most important diplomatic centre in 
the world", the commission can also avoid putting any contracts out 
to tender  - a fact criticised by the court of auditors but allowed 
by the  commission under its own regulations.  Instead the commission 
uses 'negotiated procedures (aka backhanders)

Such procedures were used in the construction of  the hideously 
expensive Brussels Berlaymont building (known as 'Berlaymonster''). 
It took 13 years to complete and was recently renovated with a 
further ?1bn or so of taxpayers' money - but is still not large 
enough, it seems, to house the growing number of Eurocrats.   The new 
project is expected to take a further 15 years to complete .



To make sure the commission's exploits are not open to public 
scrutiny Eurocrats recently proposed "to improve access to documents" 
by, er, keeping them secret.

Swedish justice minister Beatrice Ask condemned the proposal to 
restrict public access to entire categories of documents unless they 
appeared in a register.  And the proposal was also condemned by MEPs, 
who called for the commission to make all its documents available on 
a central website.    Er, but that would be the same MEPs who have 
proposed a new version of the transparency law - to create an "EU 
Classified" category inn which documents which would "harm the 
interests of the European Union or member states" would be kept 
secret from the public for 30 years.    Oh, and the same MEPs 
(excluding the liberal ALDE party) who have voted to keep their own 
bloated expenses secret as well!