Disappointing but not surprising news from Brussels has revealed a discrepancy of over £80 million in expense claims for European Union bureaucrats in 2006 alone.
Robert Galvin, a British accountant who looked over the EU’s books, found a discrepancy of £81 million in “personal entitlement” payments to EU civil servants in 2006, and saw there was “considerable risk” of further abuses. For the EU to misuse taxpayers’ money like this is simply unacceptable.
David Lidington, the Minister for Europe, has responded to the findings by saying that “reports such as these are worrying and further emphasise the need for increased transparency across all EU institutional budgets”.
That’s very easy for him to say, but will anyone ever really be held to account for these failings? I fear we all know the answer to that one, given the EU’s record on dealing with financial mismanagement.
