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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.
The auditors' "negative statement of assurance" has become an autumn routine as celebrated as France's annual Beaujolais Nouveau release, and gives Eurocrats a headache of the same proportions. This year, however, they say it's all change.
To a certain extent, the evidence bears this claim out. Around 80 percent of the EU's €100 million budget is spent by local and national regional authorities, and this seems to account for a major part of budget leakage. Indeed, the European Commission, which looks after the other fifth, is describing the shift in blame to member states as "significant progress".
The Common Agricultural Policy, administered by governments and accounting for a whopping 43 percent of the EU's budget, was judged to be particularly dodgy - quelle surprise.
British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies - who can always be relied upon to defend the European Commission over elected governments - blamed ministers, moaning that because of governmental irresponsibility, EU citizens could be led to suspect that the entire European Union is incompetent and corrupt. Now what might give them that idea? Conservatives attacked the UK government in particular failing to clean up the EU budget during the EU presidency (even though the budget presented was 2004's).
The response from other MEPs has been mixed. Some, particularly from Northern European nations (ie those who pay for the EU) complain that dodgy accounts make it difficult to defend the EU in the face of rising Euroscepticism. Others are wary of causing too much fuss and possibly upsetting the ongoing (and very sensitive) 2007-2013 budget negotiations.
For their part, member states complain that the auditors need to put their house in order first. British chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown chaired a meeting of EU finance ministers last week. The ministers declared that
"It was for the auditors to set out ways to improve the procedures for clearing the accounts... the system of verification needed updating and (the ministers) rejected Commission calls for national authorities to take more responsibility."
According to the ministers, the failure to provide an "all-clear" on the EU budget is down to technical difficulties rather than widespread fraud.
Change the rules, in other words, and accounting discrepancies will no longer exist.
