Andrew Duff MEP responds to our report on EU Development Aid 1

Mark Wallace European Union

Andrew Duff MEP has written a a letter to the Independent arguing that our position that EU Development Aid is too secretive and wasteful, set out in a recent report (PDF), means we should support the Lisbon Treaty. That is clearly wrong.

Integrating EU aid spending into the rest of the EU’s finances won’t fix the issue when the EU can’t even get its accounts approved at audit. The lack of transparency and accountability that drives the problems in the aid budget also exists in the rest of the European Union. The culture of cover-ups and secrecy is so entrenched we don’t even know how MEPs have voted on many issues.

We need moves towards genuine transparency and scrutiny in aid spending as recommended in our report. Not further integration into a supranational organisation that, along with all its other faults, has allowed ongoing fraud and misspending on a vast scale across its budget, from MEPs expenses to aid to Africa.

Increasing the powers of the European Union is an absurd response to their inability to exercise their existing powers openly and effectively.

Mark Wallace

Mark is a writer and political campaigner, ardent libertarian and eurosceptic.

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billwestall

I couldnt agree more, the Lisbon Treaty will consolidate what is already an opaque system.
Transparency and accountability will not come about without substantial reform.
Libertas is the only European party that is committed to reforming the current system by offering all European electors the chance to vote for change. I fully support the European Union, but not in its current form.