PRIVATE EYE 1235 1-14.5.09
Brussels Sprouts1. While MEPs are keen to pocket their £172 daily attendance
allowance for turning up at the European parliament, what they
actually do when they are there remains highly questionable,
Very few of the 785 MEPs attended parliamentary sessions full time
and some not even half the time, according to research published last
week by Flavien Deltort, former assistant to Italian MEP Marco
Cappato, How many still se the attendance allowance as just a 'siso'
fee - cash for 'signing in and sodding off' remains unclear.
After studying attendance reports and tabled questions between 2004
and 2008, Deltort found that only 9 MEPs attended full time in
plenary sessions while only 2 Austrian MEPs, Hans-Peter Martin and
Paul Rubig, fully attended committees. After Deltort's revelations
were published on Cappato's website, parlorama.eu, MEPs responded in
the time-honoured fashion - by threatening to sue Deltort for
tarnishing parliament's image.
There is nothing in MEPs ripping off taxpayers with their expense
claims, nor in whistle blowers getting it in the neck. In 2004 Hans-
Peter Martin documented 7,200 cases of MEPs falsely claiming
allowances. He was later sacked from the socialist party and had to
set up his own party. A German TV crew which tried to film MEPs
signing in and sauntering off was then thrown out of the parliament
building and MEPs later voted to ban the media from the area.
Last year whistle blowing Dutch Green MEP. Paul van Buitenen found
more evidence of attendance misuse with MEPs signatures even being
faked by their assistants and fake meetings set up.
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2. Meanwhile officials in the European Commission have finally
acknowledged that whistleblower Robert McCoy was invalided out of his
job as an auditor with the EU's Committee of the Regions thanks to
harassment by his bosses.
An investigation by the Commission found that "professional (ie work-
related) causes" lay behind Mr McCoy's fall from grace. However,
despite this criticism of one EU body by another, after so many
years of official foot-dragging it is of little consolation to Mr
McCoy , who remains at home unable to work, and unsure whether
he will ever be compensated for his years in limbo.
Mr McCoy's torment started in 2003 because he did his job properly,
exposing bogus travel claims and other mis-doings by 222 members of
the Committee of the Regions. However, as the bearer of bad news, he
was himself "pressurised" by his managers.
According to the European Commission's staff union, L'Union
Syndicale, they tried to "restrict his independence as an internal
auditor". They were also guilty of "mobbing" Mr McCoy and "other
acts of intimidation".
OLAF. the EU's less than perfect crime investigation branch,
confirmed Mr McCoy's reports and said the committee had indeed been
involved in "systematic and flagrant incompetence" with respect to
"the essential rules of tendering procedures and financial
management". In 2004 the European Parliament even demanded that the
committee made a formal apology to Mr McCoy. But it never did and
Mr McCoy, though vindicated, was formally put out to grass on
health grounds.
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EU-phemisms
"We MEPs have a word for the corrupt expenses-fiddling MPs of
Westminster - "Lightweights' !"
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