For the eleventh year in a row, the European Union's annual accounts have failed to gain a seal of approval from the EU's own auditors.
The European Court of Auditors said the amount of spending they could verify rose to 35% in 2004 from 6% in 2003.
**So the amount the thieves extort from taxpayers has gone up.
The improvement was mainly due to a new system of control over the payment of agricultural subsidies to farmers.
But the auditors said the vast majority of spending was still affected by "errors of legality and regularity".
**In a word theft, on a huge fucking scale.
The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Brussels says once again the shadow of fraud and mismanagement has been cast over the EU's budget process.
**Thats one way of putting it.
"We need to look at why mistakes happen in the first place and do something about it," the Court of Auditors' president, Hubert Weber, told the European Parliament on Tuesday.
**No you have 13 fucking years to resolve the corruption, paybacks, payoffs and bribes for mates, friends, business contacts, lobbyists and assorted parasites. It needs to be closed down or failing that the UK needs to get the fuck out asap.
"The vast majority of the payments budget was again materially affected by errors of legality and regularity."
Administrative Affairs Commissioner Siim Kallas said member states needed to take more responsibility for checking how EU funds were spent.
**Fuck off, no seriously fuck off and die. What sort of shit is the statement is that. Its rotten to the core. As for the comment about member states needing to take responsibility that is the sort of bull that we expect from the EU and exactly why their accounts have not been signed off in 13 fucking years.
He added that he was confident they would agree to this by the end of the year.
**Jesus fucking Christ, they have not a clue. It needs action now. Find the corrupt fucks and jail them.
However, a finance ministers' meeting chaired by UK Chancellor Gordon Brown last week rejected the Commission's request for them personally to sign off on their country's EU spending.
**No suprise there.
British Conservative MEP James Elles, said: "The British presidency of the EU has had a good opportunity to grasp this problem. But Gordon Brown is yet again saying one thing and doing another.
"He says he wants everyone to do their bit to improve the situation but he's not prepared to take the lead himself."
**Bottler Brown bottles again...
The EU budget last year came to about 100bn euros (£67bn), of which 44bn euros was spent on agriculture.
The British member of the Court of Auditors, David Bostock, said the EU's new Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) had reduced the risk of error for most EU agricultural expenditure to an "acceptable" level.
**Bollocks, in a word mate. The fact that the bean counters won't sign off the accounts shows that there is a major problem, not an "acceptable" level.
But he said the court had not been able to provide any assurance with regard to EU regional spending, foreign aid, internal policies, or some more complicated areas of agricultural spending, such as export refunds and rural development.
"The Commission can say that they have made some progress this year. But there is still a long way to go," he said.
The auditors' report said more than a third of EU farm spending did not "provide the Commission with reasonable assurance of compliance... with Community legislation."
It also pointed out that a lot of EU spending is "high risk", in that you have to rely on people spending it as they have promised to.
**So what you are now saying is that you can't or won't check up on where our tax money go's. Can we leave now, at least with our own MP we know we are getting fiscally raped by people from this nation...
READ & WEEP.
EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG - EU auditors have once again refused to sign off the bloc's accounts while noting that EU farm subsidy reform means that handouts are going to golf clubs rather than farmers. The president of the European Court of Auditors, Hubert Weber, gave a negative statement of assurance on the EU's spending when presenting the 2006 accounts report to the European Parliament's budgetary control committee late on Monday (11 November).
The red card from the auditors is the 13th in a row and comes despite several improvements introduced in recent years to boost the regularity of EU cash distribution. Just as last year, member states are the key target of the auditors' criticism due to "the high level of error" in their dealings with the EU's budget.
Member states manage and control 80 percent of the bloc's common budget, some €32.4bn in 2006."The supervisory and control systems in the member states were generally ineffective or moderately effective, and the [European] Commission maintains only a moderately effective supervision of their functioning," noted Mr Weber.The Court pointed out in its report that "at least 12% of the total amount reimbursed to structural policies projects should not have been paid out," particularly in the area of regional development and social cohesion.
Golf clubs profiting from farm fundsThe top auditing body also stressed that the EU's new administration and control system (IACS) which covers 70 percent of agriculture pocket (€49.8 bn in 2006) paid out in direct subsidies to farmers has proved effective, where applied properly. Greece has been singled out as the one country where problems remain on the matter and could be punished by a freeze of its portion of EU farm aid.
But in the area of agri-environmental type of measures "the Court found that in seven out of eight cases checked in rural development, the farmers audited had not met their commitments."Also, the introduction of a single payment scheme in farm subsidies - aimed at allocating EU aid not according to the amount of production but the amount of land - has resulted in allocation of entitlements to landlords who have never practised agriculture, Mr Weber pointed out.
"Among new beneficiaries are railway companies in the UK, horse riding or breeding clubs in Germany and Sweden and golf or leisure clubs and city councils in Denmark and the UK," he added.EU audits marathon kicks inEU auditors also found errors above the accepted level in the area of EU policies controlled primarily by the commission - mainly due to commission reimbursements to beneficiaries who had overstated the costs of projects.
Problems were identified in the auditing of projects related to the EU's internal policies, foreign policy action and in pre-accession countries schemes.The Court of Auditors' president is due to present the findings to finance ministers on Tuesday (13 November) and on 29 November to the parliament plenary.Each April, MEPs approve or "discharge" the previous year's spending, paving the way for adoption of the following year's budget.
Delaying the discharge can put pressure on the commission or member states to make changes, while refusing to discharge can damage confidence in the commission, even causing its fall as in 1998. In the first round of comments on the auditors 2006 report, the Finnish centre-right deputy Alexander Stubb said, "Looking at the review of structural funds, approval of last year's spending is not the first thing that I think about."
2 people have spoken:
It's typical of a lefty type organisation like the EU to give up after reaching an acceptable level of errors/thieving. It's socialist type government just like everywhere else, you'll just have to get used to the fact that there will be a certain amount of stealing from the public purse.
Not just lefties, former communists who jumped in the Eu when the wall came down.
Uber right wingers, grafters, shysters, spin artists and carpet baggers galore,
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