Nov 2009 10

Small Wonders0

The first green light for years? That seems to be the remarkable verdict of the Court of Auditors, who have signed off the EU’s accounts (covering 2008) for the first time in a decade and a half.

Well, to a point. A number of areas have been given only “qualified” opinions, noting in places that the state of criticism has dropped from “adverse” merely to a level of some concern. Other spending fields come under harsher review. Cohesion Policy, which accounts for around a third of the budget, saw a tenth of its payments questioned as having been ineligible (a term which covers both incompetence and fraud). In its colour coding of the various departments, amber (representing partial effectiveness) features far too prominently throughout the audit.

Herein lies the major shift. In 2005, 60 per cent of the budget fell into the red category revealing over 5 per cent errors, and 2 per cent amber with 2-5 per cent errors. Today, 31 per cent is red and 22 per cent amber.

In other words, years of pushing for reform have led to 12 per cent of the budget becoming acceptable and 20 per cent became partially flawed, still leaving 31 per cent still red. As triumphs go, this one has its limits.

Past major concerns about Greek computer systems continue to exist. Some municipalities were caught claiming for wasteland. Italy seemed to be turning once again a blind eye to collecting seven eighths of taxes owed under a milk levy. A company that had helped draft a tender won the contract against legal advice actually given. A water pipeline was built to distribute water from a dam that was never built, by managers who knew it breached EU funding criteria but were in a hurry to spend a €5.7 million EU grant. Staff pensions liabilities continue to remain an issue.

Once again, the reader is left with the sense that if there was a sense of “ownership” and of “taxpayers’ money” rather than a perception of money flowing like honey from distant Brussels, much of this waste would have been avoided. As net contributors, British taxpayers can feel particularly aggrieved – notwithstanding administrative blunders over Scottish farmers the Auditors flag up, and some mysterious concerns hinted at over the EU Police training college at Bramshill.

Still, the Court of Auditors has approved discharge. We can only applaud the improvements that have been made, but there is still a mountain to climb as we shall explore in a forthcoming post. We await MEP Martha Andreasen’s analysis with baited breath.

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