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A Bargain, Yes, A Bargain
Over the next years, this figure will increase at a hyper-inflationary rate: "In 2008-09, the net payment will be worth £6.1 billion. In 2009-10, it will be £6.4 billion", says the Telegraph. Yes, because we've go so much money to throw around, haven't we?
The EU's Omerta
“This Parliament is a paradise of unjustified privileges and possibilities for real cheats. It is a central problem for democracy and credibility in Europe.”
You will doubtless be unsurprised to hear that Euro-MPs from the EU Parliament's budgetary committee voted against revealing the contents of the secret fraud report to the public.
The report shows how some Euro-MPs abuse staff allowances of up to €17,000 a month to pay family members, or pocket it themselves.
Those defending the code of silence said that the budget committee's work would be jeopardised if the document was made public; it was claimed that some information would not be forthcoming if it was likely to enter the public domain.
EU Continues To Smother Fraud Report
Officials at the EU Parliament claim that they haven't called in fraud inspectors to investigate the secret report they've locked up and assigned security guards to because, they say, they don't think it shows fraud.
Those few Euro-MPs who have read the report and are willing to talk about it are spitting with disbelief: Here's Chris Davies (UK, Liberal Democrat):
“I think if names were attached to some of the cases of malpractice highlighted, then prison should follow,” he said. “Maybe when some MEPs are named, exposed for defrauding the Parliament and the public and are sent to prison a more acceptable approach will be adopted.”
The EU's Chamber Of Secrets
Reading the committee report
A secret room in an undisclosed location protected by biometric locks and security guards. Those few who enter can only do so after signing confidentiality agreements, and are prohibited from discussing what they discover inside. It sounds like something from spy series Alias or the fantasy Da Vinci Code. What could provoke this kind of security paranoia in the real world? The codes for the US nuclear arsenal? China's secret space program?
No: The secret room houses a confidential dossier on the "extensive, widespread and criminal abuse" by Euro-MPs of staff allowances, so explosive EU parliament figures are terrified by the damage it could do should its contents be revealed to the public.
Wii Leave?
Parents who spent the weeks before Christmas trudging up and down Oxford Street, searching in vain for Nintendo's must-have Wii games console will doubtless be delighted to hear that several of the hard-to-find consoles were snapped up by Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre.
According to a story in The Sun, Wiis are just one of the perks distributed to "dangerous foreign criminals" as they while away their time before deportation. Other goodies on offer include 48 inch plasma televisions, music rooms with top-of-the-range kit, and a scheme whereby inmates are paid to play football.
When poor little Jack and Chloe woke up on Christmas morning to find their stockings empty, little did their parents know that had they raised cut-throat Albanian people smugglers or fanatical terror supporters, Santa might have been more obliging.
In The Lobby
This weekend saw the EU's annual "Agora" meeting, when 500 representatives of various Brussels-based pressure groups and lobby organisations got together with MEPs to discuss "civil society."
Here's Dan Hannan "You see how the system works? The EU firehoses cash at these organisations to lobby it, they tell it what it wants to hear, and it can then turn around and say that, far from being undemocratic, it is giving a voice to the peoples of Europe. Millions are thereby drawn into the system, their livelihoods depending on the EU. And shall I tell you the best bit? You’re paying for the whole racket."
Serving Time
Wasting time is unfairly criticised. We pester our children not to do it. We take pride in the tasks that ensure we never do it. But we all do it.
French Pension Funds Scandal
Negotiating tool
The FT (tedious registration that refuses to keep readers logged in required) has the best analysis we've seen of a backhander scam which has shamed both France's trade unions and MEDEF, the employers foundation.
Subsidy Junkies
The latest EU wine scam: Put an end to the idiocy which meant wine makers were paid to produce bad wine, which the state would have to pay again to dispose of. Instead, pay wine makers to produce nothing.
Beware The Chinese Tooth Fairy
The Chinese toothpaste scare that has forced the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to scramble to check imports of dentifrice from the People's Republic, has now spread to Canada.
Cleaned Out
Belgian media reports that EU bureaucrats faked cleaning contracts in order to siphon off money
Great Train Robbery
Plague of train raids in Italy
The sleeper service between Milan and Southern Italy has been hit by 29 robberies in 2006 - nearly four times as many as 2005.
Gangs of Eastern European robbers are boarding the train in Rome in the early hours of the morning, overpowering guards and removing valuables and luggage from passengers before slipping off in remote stations. So popular has the Italian job become, it is reported that two rival gangs came to blows on one train over who had first dabs on the loot in the carriage.
MEPs Cover Up Pensions Scam
Centre-right and Socialist MEPs have united to bury a report slamming a scheme which makes taxpayers bail out European deputies' pension funds.
Chirac's Final Fiddle
You have to admire his gall. While Tony Blair is trying to salvage his legacy by bringing peace to the Middle East, France's Jacques Chirac has his eye on a worldlier goal. He's trying to appoint a close ally to the job of Paris' chief prosecutor, ensuring that he'll get an easy ride when his presidential immunity expires next year.
Italy's Phantom Hospitals
Over the past four decades, Italy has spent £5.5 billion on 126 hospitals which have never admitted patients.
Does Not Compute
More trouble for the government: The company at the heart of the computing reform of Britain's National Health Service faces uncomfortable revelations of its financial performance later this week.
Turbulence Hits Superjumbo
After a year when it outstripped its major rival Boeing for new orders, the European Airbus consortium is in deep trouble.
The Royal Pardon
Jacques Chirac has been accused of granting a presidential amnesty to his crony, former athelete Guy Drut.
Journalists For Sale
It's bad enough having to deal with corrupt MEPs with their noses in the trough - now it's emerged that the EU parliament is paying journalists to report on its activity in Strasbourg!
Unaccountable
In a now-familiar November routine, the European Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the EU's accounts - for the 11th year running.
A Princely Sum
Food aid charity Oxfam claims that Prince Albert of Monaco is paid £200,000 annually by the Common Agricultural Policy.
Rumbled!
It has been revealed that Holland's agriculture minister, the country's most prominent opponent of farm subsidy reform, receives 190,000 euro each year to prop up farms he owns in France and Holland.
Banana Republique
What is it about French democracy that inspires such, erm, confidence in observers?
Is it the endemic corruption, that at times threatens to make Zimbabwe look like Denmark? Or the docile press? Or the electorate's fascination with unspeakable extremists on the right and the left?
Whether one of the above, a combination of all three or additional factors, something about the way France is run tempts commentators to write of French "democracy" rather than democracy. Earlier this month, the EU Referendum Blog warned of the bought votes and pre-completed slips piled in French warehouses prior to May's referendum on the constitution.
Now former British cabinet minister Michael Portillo is in on the act. Writing in the Sunday Times, he looked back at the last French referendum on the EU, 1993's vote on the Maastricht Treaty.
A member of John Major's government at the time, Portillo and several other cabinet members had gathered to await the results of the vote. Portillo, who led the troubled government's Eurosceptic wing, hoped that a No from France would halt the EU's federal ambitions. In the opposite corner, ministers including Douglas Hurd hoped France would approve the treaty.
Neither was prepared for what happened next:
"Within minutes of the ballot boxes being sealed Major received a call from Paris to tell him that the vote had been carried by 51% to 49%. That surprised me. In my experience of elections it had never been possible to know the outcome of such a close contest so quickly. To this day I harbour shameful doubts about how the French government could be so sure so soon. British ministers exchanged sceptical glances in private as Major went outside to tell the media of his pleasure at the result."
The French Yes spelled the beginning of the end for Major's government (and, incidentally, Britain's Conservative Party's tenure as a serious political force). Major was forced to push Maastricht through parliament despite his party's misgivings.
Now Tony Blair is hostage to a French referendum. A Yes vote would mean Blair must dedicate his first year in office into campaigning for a British Yes in 2006 - a prospect he surely cannot relish. Blair plans to step down as PM sometime in his next term: Failing to persuade British voters to accept the EU Constitution would spell a disappointing end to his reign, not least because "putting Britain at the heart of Europe" was one of his aims as PM.
A No from the French, however, would kill the treaty. Blair would be spared a referendum and could retire on his own terms. Perhaps he could use the last six months of 2005 - when Britain holds the EU Presidency - working to rebuild the EU along sensible, reformed lines. Surely this is what he hopes for, although a Chirac-inspired drive to build a core "social Europe" following a French No cannot be ruled out. Chirac would be desperate to salvage his presidency if his country voted No.
Nevertheless, as we wrote last week, one cannot underestimate the power of France's media once it is instructed to fall behind a policy. As the Daily Telegraph says,
"Surely the French can be relied upon to let us down. One thing is for sure: the full weight of the Gallic establishment will be deployed in the attempt to bludgeon voters into submission. The BBC's pro-Brussels sympathies are as nothing compared with those of French television and most newspapers; the state will spend vast sums in the attempt to twist its citizens' arms. Anything that can be done will be done."
The Telegraph concludes that France's people might for once rebel against the machinations of their betters. But whatever happens, having the future of a British prime minister hanging on a vote in France demonstrates that EU integration has already gone further than most of us would like.
UPDATE: Democracy in action: Chirac reportedly took time out from his visit to Japan to order the cancellation of an appearance by EU commission president José Manuel Barroso on France's main political news programme.
Sin City
Nearly fifty French officials go on trial in Paris today in the city's biggest ever corruption trial.
Lined up before magistrates are four former ministers from the ruling UPM party, including sporting icon and former sports minister Guy Drut, who is leading Paris' campaign to hold the Olympic Games in 2012.
The trial will focus on the period from 1989 to 1997, when the centre right UPM (then known as the RPR), the Socialist Party and the Communist Party are alleged to have received "donations" totalling around £60 million from building firms in exchange for the right to renovate Paris' schools.
The scam is claimed to have been common knowledge among the city's administrative classes - and involvement in the crimes is said to reach "right to the top."
One figure is strangely missing from the list of party finance officers, government works commissioners and ministers lined up before the beak this week.
A certain M Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris between 1977-1995. While the President's legal immunity from prosecution will keep him out of court, the major figures in the corruption scandal were suspiciously close to Chirac. Michel Roussin was Chirac's chief of staff and cabinet secretary for ten years. Michel Giraud was head of the party Chirac dominated in the Paris region.
If found guilty of corruption, the accused could face up to ten years in jail.
Paris judges have made no secret of the fact that they wish the President would appear before them. The Guardian reports that judges claim to have "strong and concordant evidence" that he knew about the scheme at the very least. However, Chirac refused to even answer their questions and in 2001 muscled a tin-pot dictatorship presidential immunity act through the courts which prevents him from being tried or even giving evidence while president.
Yet another reason for Chirac wanting to run for President once again in 2007!
This latest scandal couldn't come at a worse time for either Chirac's mob or the rival Socialists, both of whom are deeply shaken by a second opinion poll suggesting France will vote against the European Constitution. Growing anger at corruption scandals in mainstream politics and withing Jacques Chirac's ruling party in particular are cited as major reasons for voters' hostility to the treaty, which is supported by the vast majority of France's mainstream "establishment" politicians.
Last week, Richard North at the EU Referendum Blog noted that the previous opinion poll did not include "the warehouses full of pre-completed voting slips or the payroll vote in French overseas departements."
We wonder what it could be that makes commentators so cynical about French democracy?
School For Scandal
Bringing up baby, Eurobrat-style
The offspring of EU supremos learn how to enjoy life at the taxpayers' expense early. This week sees the news that Eurocrats are building a new creche for their children - and that places will cost around £20,000 per child per year.
That's not far off the annual fees for Eton, Britain's top public school. However, EU execs will not have to pay such a staggering sum for their Eurobrats. Instead, parents will pay around £3,500 each year, while the long-suffering European taxpayer picks up the remainder of the tab.
"Sordid Accounting"
Only in the European Union could the dismal practice of accounting be described as "sordid." But that's how an EU insider has described the union's bizarre and corruption-riddled accounts procedure, according to a secret memo which has fallen into the hands of the Daily Telegraph.
According to the newspaper, the espirit du corps at the EU accounts department is nothing less than "incestuous." Errors are routinely covered up and large sums go missing regularly. Accounts staff lack qualifications and training, seemingly chosen for their unwillingness to question procedure rather than any experience in handling accounts.
Meanwhile the archaic single entry book-keeping procedures that the union, alone among the world's financial bodies, insists on continuing, seems custom-built to facilitate widespread fraud.
The memo goes on to say that the Budget Directorate uses its bureaucratic muscle to "trash" anyone who questions the system or probes too deeply into dodgy accounts.
The author of the memo, Jules Muis, was up to last year director general of the EU's internal audit service.
Indeed, the EU is strangely resistant to reform in this department. Muis defends the former chief accountant, Marta Andreasen - the first real accountant to hold the post - claiming that no self-respecting professional would have failed to have questioned the books Andreasen was expected to sign.
Andreasen was sacked last year, after what Muis describes as a "smoke and mirrors" trial. He added that the European Commission "sanctions people who speak ill of the commission."
Muis himself was the subject of dark threats from EU officials: At one stage, the director-general was warned "We have ways of breaking people like you."
He retired last year, perhaps before he was introduced to that particular Room 101.
Cooking Your Books
The EU Referendum Blog reports that the European Commission is now demanding the right to investigate national governments' accounts.
Ostensibly demanded as a Eurozone safeguard after it emerged that Greece and Italy fiddled their books in order to meet the requirements of the single currency, the new requirement will give Eurocrats unprecedented access to accounts of nations outside the Eurozone, including Britain.
According to The Sun, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has already advised the European Commission of where they can redirect their demand.
As the report says, these Commission investigations come on top of the regular fraud check ups carried out by the EU's dodgy statistical offices, Eurostat. Governments will be obliged to ensure that EU accountants are given unrestricted access to treasury accounts.
Unfortunately, the EU's accounts are even ropier than those of many member states. The EU's accountants have been unable to sign off the union's books for the past decade thanks to discrepancies and irregularities in the accounts.
But never mind that the corrupt EU has a cheek demanding to investigate the books of member states: This development has deeper political implications. As the EU Referendum Blog concludes,
"No country which is required to open its books to a higher authority, and which stands to be penalised if it does not meet economic criteria set by a group of which it was only a minority member, can be considered sovereign or independent.
"And since in these important respects, member states are effectively second-tier governments, and more powers are handed to the central government via the EU constitution, it would do well for the MacShanes (Denis, Britain's minister for Europe) of this world also to admit that the EU is no longer (and never has been) an association of sovereign nation states, freely cooperating with one another.
"It is time for the sham to end."
Commission Approved
Well, MEPs have finally approved the new European Commission. The commission, as you will recall, couldn't find room for devout Roman Catholics but seems to have been able to find space for a number of ex-communist apparatchiks.
A Latvian also got the boot for not being sufficiently fanatical about the EU Project, and for the mortal sin of praising low taxes.
However, it doesn't appear that one's past, no matter how dodgy, has any real bearing on whether or not you are suitable to hold office in Europe. Indeed, in some cases you might not be allowed to talk about it at all, as a British Eurosceptic MEP could find to his cost.
Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party brought up a few, ah, difficulties regarding France's commissioner Jacques Barrot. Barrot is the new transport commissioner. The EU Referendum Blog has a look at some of his previous "activities" (and French law prevents us from going into too much detail here) which suggest that Farage was right to suspect that voters, if they knew the truth, would not be inclined to "buy a used car" from Barrot.
Incidentally, the BBC broadcast Farage's "used car" comments outside the context of his complaint, with the result that the UKIP man looked a little foolish and out of step.
Apparently Mr Farage's revelations came as a surprise to many of the Frenchman's colleagues: Barrot was a grateful recipient of one of Jacques Chirac's presidential pardons, so it is illegal to even mention his previous activities.
Plus ça change in the European Commission then...
Good Guys Finish Last
Yet more evidence that Britain gets a poor deal from the EU. According to the Times, British firms are losing billions every year thanks to French, German and Italian governments fiddling their procurement rules to ensure public works contracts go to domestic businesses.
Single Market EU rules demand that public works contracts be open to competition and bidding from businesses in all other EU nations. Britain - supposedly Europe's rebellious "bad boy" - tends to observe this law, even when local firms complain they lose business to more competitive tenders from Europeans. And how do these European firms maintain such high levels of competitiveness? Why they are propped up by corrupt governments bending the law in their favour.
A report commissioned by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown details how governments in France, Italy and Germany award contracts to domestic firms, even when outsiders offer cheaper or better service; twist the text of contracts to favour of national industries; and pressurising suppliers to use local sub-contractors.
Political favouritism is often the main criteria for awarding these "jobs for the boys."
A favourite scam is to split one job into smaller elements, each costed beneath the threshold at which the tender should be offered to outside business. The report records one example where a road was divided into two parts for resurfacing purely to keep the work with national firms.
Foreign firms are invited to bid for work purely in the hope that their low prices can force down domestic rates - even though both the government and the national industry are aware that the outside business has no hope of winning the contract.
If that isn't enough to prop up local interests, many European governments award huge sums of state aid to industries unable to get by via the contracting scam alone.
Furthermore, the vast majority of these contracts are not even advertised as they should be on the EU's Official Journal. Richard North, of the EU Referendum Blog, reports that the Journal is largely made up of British authorities offering contracts to European businesses. When he queried why so few French contracts were advertised, the response was "part pity, part scorn."
As Richard points out, this scandal is not exactly new: Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph and the EU Referendum Blog itself have been covering it for some time.
Only now does it seem that the Chancellor has found it politically expedient to bring the scale of the corruption to the public's attention.
Brown, it seems, is on one of his regular campaigns to reform Europe, comparing the bent yet still comatose economies on continental Europe with the Miracle He Has Wrought at home.
Perhaps he figures that this kind of Euro-bashing wins votes, while the calls for reform appeal to British business leaders. His criticisms and recommendations, however, are rarely heard in the EU.
Furthermore, Brown is playing a risky game by forcing the scandal into the public arena. With Britain once again appearing foolish for playing by the rules while the EU's most sanctimonious apologists in France, Germany and Italy break every law in the book, British voters might come to one of two conclusions.
The first is that we, like our European "partners," should ignore the law and shore up our national business.
The second is that the whole damned thing is past the point of reform and that Britain is better off out of the EU altogether.
Nice Work If You Can Get It
You'll need a subscription for this Economist story, but it's worth getting to reveal yet another little-known aspect of Brussels corruption.
The European Commission has decided that it should make itself more relevant to Europe's people. Should commissioners send drones all over the continent to ask the population what it should do to reflect the wishes of Europe's inhabitants? No. Should commission decisions be put to a popular vote? Perish the thought.
No, the European Commission decided to talk to the people by opening dialogues with some of Brussel's numerous "civil society" NGOs, including luminaries like the Young European Federalists, the Federalist Voice, the Active Citizenship Network, the European Network Against Racism and the Polish NGO Office. Yes, Europe's leaders are sure to hear exactly what the man in the street thinks by speaking to the Young European Federalists.
Their conclusion? That more power should be put in the hands of the European Commission.
But where do these groups come from? Where on earth does an organisation like the Eurofanatic Federalist Voice get its funding?
Er, from the European Commission, of course. According to the Economist, the five NGOs above are funded directly or indirectly by the Commission - and so have a vested interest in campaigning for their paymasters to have more power.
The European Young Federalists alone received 460,000 Euros in just five years, and that is only the tip of the iceberg: Outgoing European Commission President Romano Prodi reckons that under his watch the Commission has forked out a billion Euros to various NGOs!
Much of the cash goes to NGOs campaigning for social causes. If a commissioner is contemplating a tricksy piece of social legislation, he just has to stroll across Brussels to a commission-funded NGO office and ask what the inhabitants think of the draft. "Consultation" over the legislation can be pushed on its way.
But sometimes the NGOs don't always do what the commission wants. The first draft of the European Constitution did not oblige commissioners to consult with NGOs before passing legislation. So NGOs campaigned successfully to have a clause forcing commissioners to consult with "civil society" (ie NGOs) inserted, thus doing what NGOs do best - safeguarding their own survival.
Self interested? Well, NGOs seem to spend much of their time campaigning for more money. Here's the Economist's last word:
"But campaigning on their own behalf is a big occupation of these groups. Look at the websites of EU-funded NGOs and it becomes clear that one of their favoured activities is to lobby for even more EU money. Thus the European Network against Racism (80-90% commission-funded) complains truculently that 'the present budget line for anti-racist activities is...insufficient. The network...needs to put pressure on the European institutions with a view to increase this amount.'
"The spectacle of organisations that receive EU money using their money to campaign for more EU money is only one example of this looking-glass world. It is a world in which so-called NGOs are actually dependent on government for cash; and one in which the European Commission, itself directly financed by Europe's national governments, finances “autonomous” organisations that campaign for more power and money to be handed to the commission itself."
EU Whistleblower Sacked
The EU's most prominent whistleblower was sacked yesterday after a 28-month enquiry.
Marta Andreasen, who had drawn attention to "Enron-style" accounting procedures in the EU was given the heave-ho during a secret tribunal.
As the Telegraph reports, internal EU evidence has largely proved Ms Andreasen's claims. However, uncovering $130 million worth of fraud is nothing compared to what the European Commission describes as her real crimes: Breach of loyalty and lack of discretion.
Andreason was first suspended in May 2002 for refusing to sign off EU accounts. She went public with her reservations, claiming that the Union's accounting procedures were a fraudster's paradise.
Ironically, she had been hired by commissioner Neil Kinnock as part of a drive to clean up the EU's fraudulent accounts.
Despite Kinnock's efforts, fraud scandals have continued to dog Romano Prodi's commission - while anyone trying to uncover scams has been at best dismissed as a Eurosceptic and at worst bullied and harassed in their workplace.
Andreason says she will appeal the decision. Few people other than whistleblowers are ever sacked by Brussels - though as the Telegraph reports, those they accuse of fraudulent practices tend to stay on in their jobs.
Chirac's Global Tax
French president Jacques Chirac has become the most prominent figure to call for a global tax to combat poverty.
Speaking in the UN yesterday, Chirac claimed that a "new vision of global solidarity" was required to provide an alternative to the "poison of violence and fanaticism."
Chirac-loyalist newspaper Le Figaro was quick to contrast the president's position with George Bush's attempts to fight terror by going to war in Iraq.
Chirac didn't go into detail on how the tax might be applied. A tax on financial transactions, multinational companies or arms sales have been proposed, as have taxes on airline tickets and credit card transactions.
A voluntary version of the tax, perhaps based on a global lottery, has also been mooted.
Chirac is not the first to call for a global tax. The idea, which has gained popularity in some anti-globalisation and anti-western circles, has its roots in economist James Tobin's proposed tax on foreign exchange transactions. Former French prime minister Lionel Jospin suggested such a tax might be used to combat poverty a few years ago.
Naturally, the US would oppose such a global tax. Even the Figaro notes that many other countries are sceptical about how such a tax might be applied.
However, this may be part of the appeal for Chirac.
Like the Kyoto Protocols, this global initiative means little if the United States is not involved. If the US refuses to join in, rival governments can grandstand their committment to global unity without being obliged to make the sacrifices the initiative would require, blaming their lack of action on the Great Satan.
We will take President Chirac more seriously when he takes concrete measures to combat global inequality.
Can EURSOC humbly suggest he donate the money France receives from the EU Common Agricultural Policy to a global fund to fight poverty?
Shooting The Messenger
The International Herald Tribune has a compelling interview with European Union fraud whistleblower Marta Andreasen. Andreasen was suspended for not showing sufficient "respect and loyalty" to the EU when she revealed the extent of internal fraud. Her treatment by anti-fraud campaigners worldwide contrasts sharply with her vilification by her European Union employers.
Sun Shines On Brussels
The Sun has launched a series of reports dedicated to exposing the EU's monumental levels of fraud and wastage.
Most of the first salvo is directly squarely at the newspaper's old enemy Neil Kinnock. Readers of The Sprout and EURSOC will be familiar with much of the material here, but it is good to see a best-selling national newspaper pick up on what it calls "the world's biggest gravy train."
Readers might argue that Euroscepticism is not exactly unknown on the pages of The Sun, but this series promises to be fun: Claims that the EU has spent £800 million on an office block and £70 million on a fleet of lorries to shuttle documents between Strasbourg and Brussels will be embarrassingly prominent as the European Commission tries to make Britain Europe's biggest paymaster.
A Mug's Game
Ever wondered why British public service workers drive Renaults, BMWs and Volvos while if you travel in France, you will never, ever see an official drive anything other than a French vehicle? Or why Britain's trainbuilding industry is dying while every train on Germany's tracks is built in that country?
It's down to Britain's timid devotion to EU procurement rules. All public services above a certain cost must be advertised in the EU's Official Journal to allow suppliers in other European nations to compete for contracts. All well and good. As Christopher Booker notes, Britain "is far more punctilious in obeying these rules than most other countries."
Other countries merrily ignore the rules, pumping up home businesses with state aid and contracts. Booker notes an amusing exchange on the BBC's Today programme between British trade union leader Derek Simpson, minister Patricia Hewitt and journalist James Naughtie:
"(Simpson) called for more of the £109 billion we spend on public procurement to be diverted to British firms, to boost manufacturing jobs, neither the interviewer, James Naughtie, nor the minister Patricia Hewitt, pointed out that this would be prohibited under the procurement rules.
"Mr Simpson asked why Britain was about to lose its last train-building capacity when every train in France or Germany is built in those countries. Neither Mr Naughtie nor Mrs Hewitt explained that this was because both those countries were in flagrant breach of the procurement and state-aid rules, which is why our steel, shipbuilding and coal industries have found it so difficult to compete with their state-subsidised Continental rivals."
Booker calls procurement "One of the greatest, if largely unreported scandals of the EU."
Richard North, over at EU Referendum Blog, has more: MEPs at the EU Parliament base in Strasbourg recently treated themselves to a new fleet of cars - top of the range Renaults, of course.
Perks Up
The noses-in-the-trough free for all that is the EU parliament's expenses scheme continues to raise a stink. Today's Herald Tribune carries a long article on the extent of these scams, which some commentators now claim is "running out of control."
What A Carve-Up!
As European Commission president Romano Prodi has deserted his post to campaign shamelessly in his native Italy's elections, the search for a replacement president has intensified.
The Commission has taken a few knocks recently - not least because of Prodi's blundering - but despite its recent run-ins with France and Italy over the single currency stability pact, the post of Commission president still carries great influence in the EU.
Why else would France and Germany be struggling to install a president from a tame country who will put the brakes on any need for economic reform?
Euro-Fraud Doubles
The surprises never end: European Union fraud doubled between 2001 and 2002, costing taxpayers over a billion Euros.
Britain's National Audit Office puts the figure of reported or suspected frauds at around 10,000 in 2002 - twice the figure of the previous year. This is despite the European Commission's repeated claims that it is fighting to put an end to what one investigator has called the "widespread looting" of taxpayers' money that goes on in EU offices.
However, according to the Telegraph, the National Audit Office admits that its latest figures can only be an estimate. The NAO claims that Europe's figures and book-keeping systems are so dodgy that it is impossible to tell the real level of fraud in the Union.
The report comes in the same week that MEPs voted to absolve European Commissioners of responsibility for fraud taking place on their watch - even though the current Commission came to power promising to clean up EU corruption.
Commission Voted Off Hook
More corruption and dodgy dealings from the EU: The European parliament has voted by a huge majority to let the EU commission off the hook for its part in the Eurostat fraud scandal.
The decision effectively means that commissioners cannot be held accountable for fraud which takes place under their watch. As Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde points out, EU executives now need only make sure that their staff keep them in the dark about their departments to stay out of inquiries in future.
Oil For Food Scam
US readers looking for a British or European angle on the UN-Iraq "Oil for food" scandal might be disappointed by the scanty coverage this story is receiving on this side of the pond.
However, the Telegraph is on to the scam - details here, here and here. A typically combative leader is here too.
Britain's left-wing press is giving the story less attention. The Guardian's Gary Younge, a man so anti-American his spell as a Washington correspondent must be like a season in the gulag for him, has a short, begrudging news piece. Slightly more substance from the Independent and the BBC here.
As for the Daily Mirror, which ran an hysterically anti-war, pro-UN campaign in the build up to the invasion of Iraq, nada.
Blair's Bluff
Tony Blair has no intention of bringing Britain into the single currency - but it suits him to let his Eurozone colleagues and his own party's Eurofanatics think that he wants in.
Blair learnt this slippery strategy at the hands of the Master: Bill Clinton.
Trouble Every Day
Another day, another scandal for Jacques Chirac's UMP party. Last month, Chirac's right-hand man and heir apparent Alain Juppé was convicted of fraud. Now another UMP star, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, has been found guilty of money-laundering.
Francois Leotard - who held the posts of defence and cultural minister in the late 1980s and early 1990s - was also convicted in the scandal. Leotard, however, is not connected with the president's party.
The Commission Crumbles
Romano Prodi's European Commission seems to be ending with as much disarray as it began. While the entire commission is due to be replaced later this year, some commissioners - including Prodi himself - might not wait that long.
As they eye their retirement funds or political careers in their home countries, the commission's troubles pile ever higher.
French Probe Arafat's Wife
Hot on the heels of news that the EU has finally started a probe into its funding of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, reports are emerging that French fraudbusters have been working since October on an enquiry into his wife's accounts.
Commissioners Named And Blamed
Three European commissioners - including finance chief Pedro Solbes - will be accused of bringing EU institutions 'into disrepute' for their handling of the Eurostat fraud scandal.
Den Of Thieves
The European parliament is taking a novel approach to tackling expenses fraud by MEPs.
Instead of cracking down on scams, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) want to raise their salaries to such a level that they will no longer have to fiddle the taxpayer.
Citizens Wary Of Euro-Fraud
More bad news for the EU - a Eurostat poll shows that 59% of Europeans believe fraud occurs within the European Union budget. Only 21% reckon that the EU's organisations are able to deal with fraud.
Those Nuanced Europeans
"I wish you and your families a slow and painful death."
Parmalat's former Chief Financial Officer Fausto Tonna to journalists as he was led in for questioning over "Europe's Enron."
MEPs Get Pay-Off
How do you keep a pack of inveterate scammers from fiddling their expenses?
Well, you could do things the European Parliament way. To close an expenses loophole that allowed MEPs to claim the full cost of first class air tickets while only paying bargain bucket rates, the parliament came up with an ingenious solution: Ban the flights scam, but vote a pay rise that more than covers any income lost by the scammers.
This is like cops giving housebreakers dvd players and flat screen TVs in the hope they will no longer need to burgle.
Carry On Fiddling
MEPs have blocked legislation which would have prevented them from benefiting from the European Parliaments notorious travel benefits scam.
The Taiwan Connection
Forget Elf and Eurostat: The biggest financial and political scandal of the past twenty years is France's 'frigates to Taiwan' scam.
This one has a body count: As well as an estimated half billion Euros in stray funding, at least eight people with insider knowledge of the deal have died in mysterious circumstances.
The French goverment has slapped bans on investigators hoping to examine ministry papers.
The BBC has more details, but EURSOC wonders: Frigates to Taiwan?
France's usual customers are bloodthirsty dictators. Could this be the first recorded instance of France selling military hardware to a country desperate to protect itself from a bloodythirsty dictatorship?
Noses In The Trough
The European Union's court of auditors has refused to declare EU accounts clean for the ninth year on the trot. Only a tiny nine percent of the total budget for 2002 received a clean bill of health. The remaining 91 percent, according to the auditors, was riddled with errors or otherwise unverifiable.
EU Fraudbuster 'Very Troubled'
Forgotten about the Eurostat fraud investigation? EURSOC hasn't. Today's Guardian reports that despite the European Commission's attempts to play down the scale of the fraud, one of its own investigators says that the inquiry's findings are 'very troubling.'
Slush Puppies
Despite the best efforts of EU officials to block their work, investigators probing Eurostat's grubby slush fund scandal now believe that the fraud was more widespread than previously thought.
According to a leaked report, missing records, officials' refusal to co-operate, and a breakdown in financial control meant that only a small part of what has been described as a "vast enterprise of looting" has been traced.
Yet More Fraud
Another fraud scandal has rattled the EU. The BBC reports that Belgian cops have arrested two people, one a European Commission employee, in connection with a grain dealing scam.
UPDATE: Another six people have had their collars felt in relation to this fraud.
Show Me The Way To Go Home...
Yet another expenses scam emerges from the EU. Last week, MEPs voted themselves a further travel allowance of 50 Euros a week. This comes on top of their free business class air travel and free limousine service.
But what could MEPs need more travel money for? Late night taxis, apparently. The tax-funded Limo drivers knock off at ten o'clock, when any self-respecting MEP is still hammering his expense account in Brussel's best restaurants and bars. The poor dears couldn't be expected to walk home, or pay for their own cabs, could they?
(From Samizdata, quoting a story in The Times.)
Prodi Rides Fraud Storm
Looks like the Eurostat fraud scam was rather more widespread than the European Commission's defenders claimed. Rather than the trifling matter of a million or so Euros, as was claimed, investigators allege more than five million Euros have been swindled - and that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Fraud Scandal Simmers On
The European Commission's hapless president, Romano Prodi, will face European parliament leaders on Thursday to answer questions on a fraud which has been described as "a vast enterprise of looting."
The Eurostat enquiry is doubly embarrassing for Prodi as his commission came to power on the promise of zero tolerance for for fraud. The previous commission resigned en masse following the discovery of widespread corruption in 1999.
Jacques and Gerhard's Love-in
Another meeting between the French and German leaders has ended in mutual backslapping and a joint proclamation.
So what was on the agenda for the gruesome twosome this time? Kickstarting their ailing economies, wriggling out of their stability pact committments and, of course, finding new ways to obstruct the US.
Prodi Probed - Twice
European Commission president Romano Prodi faces another fraud probe. This time, it's an Italian parliamentary probe into kickbacks allegedly recieved in the sale of Italian companies while he was premier in the late 1990s. This enquiry will be conducted as Prodi answers to an investigation by MEPs into the Eurostat scandal, which involved the placing of millions of Euros into fake bank accounts and non-existent French companies.
While Prodi is not personally implicated in the latter scam, he rose to his current position on a zero-tolerance for fraud promise, following the collapse of the previous commission in 1999.
Another Whistle Blower Sacked
The European Court of Auditors, the EU's financial watchdog, has sacked another worker for revealing corruption and fraud. The staffer, Dougal Watt, investigated nepotism, fraud and sexual harassment in the EU, and distributed a dossier of his claims to MEPs and staff.
Commission Fraud Continues - Kinnock
Four years after a massive fraud scandal which led to the symbolic resignation of the entire European Commission, the EU's administrative commissioner Neil Kinnock has claimed that there is evidence that large-scale fraud is still continuing.
Resisting Reform
It must be a cosy life in the European Commission. Every now and again someone tries to come up with an idea to distribute its 100 billion Euro budget more fairly, or, failing that, more efficiently. You and your colleagues give the report a cursory glance, then think of the lovely deals you have stitched up back home, and toss the document in the bin. Should anyone question your decision, you and your colleagues simply shout him down until he gives up.
The Minister for Elf
A leading magistrate who attempted to unravel the web of corruption surrounding France's biggest business speaks of the threats she faced.
Find and Replace
A simple command common to all word processors might have squeezed the draft EU constitution past Tony Blair's objections.
