Free Republic

Euro-MPs voice their anger over collapse of cash control By Ambrose Evans Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 29/01/2004) The European Commission has overseen an "intolerable" breakdown of EU financial control while subjecting whistleblowers to vindictive treatment, Euro-MPs said yesterday. The European Parliament's annual report on the EU's £70 billion budget expressed "extreme alarm" over failures in the commission's accounting system, finding that the books did not add up and large sums of money could not be traced. The report, drafted by Paulo Casaca, a pro-EU Portuguese socialist, complained that no commissioner had taken the blame for the disappearance of £3 million...

The European Union is failing to keep track of huge annual subsidies, and 91 per cent of its budget is riddled with errors or cannot be verified, a financial watchdog said yesterday. The European Court of Auditors refused to certify EU accounts for the ninth successive year, saying Brussels has failed to match reform rhetoric with a genuine change of culture. Abuse is said to be endemic in the Common Agricultural Policy, which still consumes almost half the £65 billion budget. Checks on subsidy claims for suckler cows found that 50.2 per cent of animals in Portugal and 31.2 per...