Indeed, one of the main complaints of the former chief accountant, Marta Andreasen, was the absence of double-entry book-keeping. Many accounts, she found, were held on spreadsheets, allowing them to be retrospectively doctored. When she went public, she was suspended and then, in a final vindictive act by the outgoing Commission, fired. What makes the EU behave like this? Its employees are not inherently wickeder than anyone else. All organisations have their share of shysters. The difference is that there is no link in Brussels between taxation, representation and expenditure. The EU expects bouquets when it spends, but not brickbats when it taxes, because its revenue is handed over by national treasuries.
As Milton Friedman once observed, there are only two kinds of money: your money and my money. The trouble is that, in Brussels, it's all your money. This creates an attitude to expenditure that is at best negligent, at worst corrupt. Last month in the European Parliament, Euro-sophists pooh-poohed the report on three grounds: that the system is improving; that critics are all xenophobes; and that the failings identified are the responsibility of the member states, not of the EU directly. These are important objections, and deserve to be considered separately.
We have heard the "things are getting better" line before. Cast your mind back seven years, to the downfall of the Santer Commission. Remember a Dutch whistle-blower called Paul van Buitenen? Remember his revelations of awesome sleaze: kickbacks in return for contracts, friends and family kept on the public payroll? Remember Edith Cresson employing her dentist as a "consultant" on a handsome salary?
Do you not recall being assured that such things would never happen again? That Prodi would hose the stables clean? Well, eight years on, nothing much seems to have changed. The President of the Court of Auditors told MEPs yesterday that "there has been no improvement" in how the EU runs itself. The truth is that EU fraud is, in the correct sense of the word, structural: a product of how the Brussels institutions are set up. By saying this, I open myself to the second charge, that of being motivated by hostility to the EU. And here I must plead guilty: I am against the EU. I'm not anti-European: I speak French and Spanish and have worked all over the Continent.
It's just that, after seven years in Brussels, I have reached the view that the system is beyond reform. When they disparage their critics this way, the Eurocrats confuse cause and effect. We are not banging on about corruption because we dislike the EU; we dislike the EU because we see it for what it is: a racket, whose chief function is to look after its own.
Finally, let us deal with the assertion that, since much of the EU's spending is disbursed by national and regional authorities, Brussels ought not to be blamed for their failings. It is certainly true that the money trickles down through many levels, like champagne through a pyramid of crystal flutes. But this is the problem: in such a system, no one has an incentive to behave properly. The applicants, knowing the cash is there to be claimed, arrange their affairs so as to qualify for it. National authorities have no interest in policing the system, since it is all EU money. And Eurocrats are happy to sign the cheques in the belief that they are buying popularity.
Many British people believe that the problem is cultural: Denis Healey once spoke of "an olive belt" that divides prim Northern Europeans from naughty Mediterraneans. His Lordship would doubtless enjoy the case cited in the current report of a Greek shepherd who, in 2002, registered a herd of 470 sheep. That year, apparently, 70 of his animals were taken by wolves. The next year, 192 of them were carried away. The year after, 239. Yet, last year, he still had 470 sheep and, according to the auditors "no evidence could be produced by the farmer to justify how he restocked his herd".
But here's the thing: the same kind of ruse is identified in North-East England. The EU system is turning Geordies into Greeks - or, more accurately, turning Geordies, Greeks and everyone else into subsidy-hungry Euro-supplicants. This is the worst aspect of Euro-corruption. In my own constituency, I have seen how the people most directly ruled by EU law - fishermen - have been forced to alter their behaviour to comply with the Brussels way of doing things. I have seen honest men turned, against their will, into liars and cheats by the Common Fisheries Policies.
The disease is not confined to Brussels. It is contaminating our own body politic, carried by cash handouts through our veins and arteries. After years of looking vainly for a cure, it is time to consider amputation.
Deze vrije tribune van EP-lid Daniel Hannan verscheen tevens in The Brussels Journal, The Free State en The Daily Telegraph.
Meer eurosceptische artikels van hem op www.hannan.co.uk.
3 Reacties:
- At 22:29 Anoniem said...
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Europe's official financial watchdog has refused to approve the EU's accounts for the 11th year in a row because they are so full of fraud and errors. The European Court of Auditors refused to give a statement of assurance on the EU's E100billion ($160.3 billion) budget for 2004. "The vast majority of the payment budget was again materially affected by errors of legality and regularity," it said. The audit found major shortcomings in the EU's two biggest areas of spending - farm subsidies and regional development. And it refused to approve the budgets for the EU's foreign policy, aid program and internal policies, particularly its research program. However, financial assistance to countries applying to join the EU was certified, as was the administration budget. The report is highly embarrassing for the European Commission, which said it was "sad" about the findings but insisted it had made progress on improving its account-keeping. The timing of the audit is highly sensitive for Brussels, which hopes to persuade European leaders to agree to a E1000 billion seven-year budget at summit talks next month. Half the project budgets approved by the commission were inadequately monitored.
- At 18:09 Anoniem said...
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Het Nederlandse "Montesqueue Instituut" heeft de rapporten van de Europese Rekenkamer onder de loupe genomen en ziet doorheen de jaren wel een verbetering in de EU-boekhouding.
http://www.montesquieu-instituut.nl/9353000/1/j9vvhfxcd6p0lcl/vhpthbg8cwzv?ctx=vg9ho5kqfizb - At 00:16 Anoniem said...
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Komaan Hein, dat kan je niet maken. Het is niet omdat er verbetering is, dat we de kritiek van Dan Hannan zomaar naast ons neer mogen leggen. Het is een schande dat de EU-boekhoudingen al 12 keer in evenveel jaren verworpen geweest is door de Europese Rekenkamer. Dat heeft niets meer te maken met de drang naar "verbetering" maar gewoon met corruptie en vriendjespolitiek. Niets of niemand kan de EU aansprakelijk stellen voor hun wanbeleid, tenzij dan de Rekenkamer, maar die wordt elk jaar door jan en alleman weggelachen.