Richard Ashworth, MEP for the South East and member of the European Parliament's committee on budgets, explains what went wrong with the EU's accounts.
Even before the European Union's Court of Auditors delivered its
verdict on the EU's accounts on Monday night, I could have told you
what it would say. For the thirteenth year in a row, the EU's
accountants felt they were unable to give a positive statement of
assurance.
Trust in the integrity of the accounting procedures is a vital
foundation stone of any democracy. If the people don't have confidence
in the veracity of the governing institutions of Europe then we begin
to resemble a banana republic. I would like to explain in a little more
depth why the auditors came to their decision, and some of the steps I
have been advocating that will enable us to move closer to ending this
charade.
Firstly, there is the issue of inadequacy of internal controls and the
regularity of the transaction the EU conducts. The court makes
reference to administrative errors, misapplication of funding and the
failure to follow correct budgetary procedures. While the auditors
rarely actually refer to fraud, not having adequate controls can leave
the Commission vulnerable to accusations of corruption.
But the comments above are usually as far as the Court can go – because
they can only comment on the transactions they can see, and that’s a
mere 26 percent of them. 74 percent – the overwhelming majority – of
transactions are carried out by the national governments and their
agencies. For example, in the UK a large amount of EU money is spent by
Defra. If you’re one of the farmers I recently met still waiting for
their 2005 CAP payment, you will not be filled with confidence! The
Court of Auditors are unable to scrutinise these accounts and, while
that does not mean each of them are cooking the books, it does create a
lack of transparency and accountability we would expect.
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