We all know what absolute power does
The tale of Dorte Schmidt-Brown is a sorry one, even for those diminishing fans of the European Commission. She is a Danish official who was hounded from her job after exposing endemic fraud in the Eurostat data office. Yesterday she had her turn at the European Court of First Instance but was sent packing with a large bill for legal costs. No wonder Euro-MPs got so cross about her plight yesterday.
A long list of whistleblowers either sacked by EU bodies or driven from their jobs can attest to the nasty reflexes of the Brussels machine, and in every case the EU's tribunals have refused to rectify the injustice. In Mrs Schmidt-Brown's case, it didn't seem to matter that Lord Kinnock, then personnel commissioner, admitted that she had been treated "disgracefully" when she tried to alert her superiors to the Eurostat scam. She was threatened and eventually fled to the safety of Denmark, a traumatised wreck. Eventually she was vindicated after investigators later uncovered "a vast enterprise of looting" at Eurostat.
Over £3m had vanished into illegal accounts and Brussels acknowledged that it had no hope of reaching the truth without a criminal inquiry armed with subpoena power. Yet three year later, nothing has been done. MEPs still have no idea where the money went. The EU investigation has fizzled out, if it ever really started.
The officials, who were accused, are still on full pay, or playing golf on full pension. The whistleblower alone has paid the price. And lest we forget, so has the German journalist who broke the astonishing story. He was arrested, losing five years of investigative files and computer data in an illegal seizure. Oh yes, the European Court ruled against him too.
Outrage is not good enough. Pitchforks, tar and feathers are what is needed.
France is truly a corrupt little country.
And the US is supposed to sniff their WHAT???
The Clintons must be running the EU, too.
..."described as a "vast enterprise of looting" by investigators."
The investigators were the looters? "J" school graduates.
I miss Grace Mitchell. She could teach a rock to write.
The EU is just another UN - corrupt, elitist, unaccountable.