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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.
The secret enquiry looked into abuses of staff allowances (worth around £100 million / €132 million a year) by a sample group of 167 Euro MPs.
The report, described as "dynamite" by those who have seen it, "terrified" parliamentary authorities who immediately spirited it away, making it available only to those Euro MPs on the parliament's budget control committee (doesn't that just inspire you with confidence?).
"Harald Rømer, the secretary-general of the European Assembly, was asked late on Monday night by Hans-Gert Pöttering, its president, and a group of senior Euro-MPs, to take measures to ensure that there was no "collateral damage" from the report.
"We want reform but we cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections next year," said a source close to the decision", the Telegraph reports.
The newspaper continues,
"The Daily Telegraph has learned that the report does not name specific individuals but has uncovered endemic abuse of staff allowances.
"Many Euro-MPs are diverting the office payments, worth £125,000 a year, to "providers", which are supposed to be accountants, professionals or companies delivering administrative services.
"But in many cases the whole allowance is paid to a single individual or Euro MP's member of staff, suspicious payments that are twice as large as the annual £61,820 salary paid to a British Euro MP.
"One source who read the report said: "The abuse is extensive. I felt the police should be reading this. Public finances are being skimmed off and there is every indication this is more widespread than anticipated."
"The internal auditor found that some Euro MPs claiming the allowance had no employees or just one member of staff.
"Another source who had also read the report said: "Some service providers simply do not exist. Others are individuals that work for or are dependent on the Euro MP.""
British Liberal Democrat Euro-MP Chris Davies, usually a reliable apologist for all things Euro, has led the chorus of disgust.
Davies has seen the report. He says,
"This report is dynamite — and makes the Derek Conway affair at Westminster look like small-change.”
“When I looked at this report my first reaction was to laugh at the outrageous extent of the abuses...
“Then that feeling turned to anger and the realisation that the police or the anti-fraud people should be looking at this.”
Davies added that criminal proceedings may follow any investigation - some Euro-MPs might even face prison, he said.
OLAF, the EU's internal anti-fraud squad, have confirmed they are investigating - again, not exactly inspiring confidence. OLAF's main claim to fame is the arrest and seizure of papers belonging to German investigative journalist Hans-Martin Tillack (more here).
The EU Referendum Blog shares our suspicions, predicting that with the complicity of the media, the story will "die a death" and the ransacking of taxpayers money will continue.
The EU Referendum Blog also notes that the excellent England Expects was the first to run with the story.
It's beginning to feel more and more like one of those 1970s paranoid conspiracy movies. Who to trust? And can the European Union be trusted to investigate its own? It's history of treatment of whistleblowers far from distinguished. And to think that one of the aims of the Lisbon Treaty is to hand more power to this ramshackle bunch of crooks, has-beens and Stalinists.
Watch your back, Mr Davies.
