After today’s Court of Auditor’s report, Open Europe have done another of their lists of “EU waste”: http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/top50waste.pdf
Here’s a comment we have posted on their blog:
Indeed, here we go again. Open Europe’s “research” of 50 examples of EU ‘fraud and waste’ is a compilation of excerpts from EU project descriptions published by the EU, but then presented out of their context by Open Europe in a populist manner. However, the list has nothing to do with the findings of the Court of Auditors (but has already been misinterpreted as such e.g. by Mail Online). The reader concerned about the state of EU finances after reading Open Europe’s piece should rest assured: the 2008 EU accounts were signed off and the majority of EU payments were found to be correct.Why not check for yourself what the Court says at http://eca.europa.eu/portal/pls/portal/docs/1/3260294.PDF
Here’s some other coverage:
Auditors: EU budget spending improving [BusinessWeek.com]
EU auditors say management of the 27-nation bloc’s multibillion-euro (dollar) budget is improving. The EU’s Court of Auditors says, however, there are still too many errors in some programs.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9BSK7B80.htm
Budget errors falling [EuropeanVoice.com]
EU auditors find that level of incorrect payments is particularly high in regional support programme.
http://www.europeanvoice.com/current/article/2009/11/budget-errors-falling/66379.aspx
And for all you ever wanted to know about the EU budget (e.g. the difference between errors and fraud): http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/publications/financial_pub/pub_eu_spending_en.pdf