EU accounts.....

[R1Geezer]

Reading last weekend that we are apparently in our 14th year of being unable to find an accountant in Europe to audit the accounts. Is the EU so institutionally corrupt that they can't even bribe and accountant to cook the books? Is there any hope for the EU when it is run by crooks who cannot lie straight in bed?

[123everton]

It comes to something when Arthur Andersen's won't touch your books, well when it was going.
Andersen's (hope I spelt it right) were the accountants for De Lorean and ENRON, for those who were wondering.

[youngmafbog]

An investigation by the Open Europe think tank yielded:
Spain: a mayor got �40K for a riding school. He setup a girlie club instead
Italy: A consortium of businessmen got �60M, it went on high living including a Ferrari
Finland: A cmpaiogn to teach Fins to Tango got �850K
Belgium (The home of the trough): A City was awarded �10M so Officials could go to dinners and hunting trips

The list goes on and on and on and on

Dont forget British taxpayers send �10Billion a year to the trough to help pay for this rubbish.

And lets not forget the Brown/Blair lot gave back our hard earned rebate.

If Brown is serious about the credit crunch then here's one easy way to cut back. After all we are a net contributer (one of 3)
so what are they going to do ? Throw us out ? Hardly although we could slig the HRA out !

[kempie]

The EU has no need to seek accountants to audit their budget - the European Court of Auditors was established in 1994 for that very purpose. Reports saying that the auditors "refused to sign off the accounts" have appeared every year since the formation of the ECA but are slightly misleading. The ECA agree the EU accounts are reliable, i.e. the accounts accurately recorded all transactions, assets and liabilities, but they will not endorse all of the spending that has taken place, not primarily for reasons of fraud (although fraud obviously does exist - some examples having been cited by youngmafbog - and which accounts for less than 0.1% of the total budget) but that some transactions have violated regulations and/or contractual conditions.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2008/11/e u-fails-its-spending-audit,-again/63002.aspx

[rov1200]

It sounds like they act similar to Westminster politicians except we do it on a grander scale.

[Hammer-Head]

Kempie. Do you not see the irony in your statement.

The EU has no need to seek accountants to audit their budget - the European Court of Auditors was established in 1994 for that very purpose.

They do not seek accountants to audit their budget because they know full well that decent accountants would take them to the cleaners. So they set up their own Court of Auditors (in the pay of the EU) to do the job.

[jno]

the court of auditors reports to the European parliament about whether the European Commission is handling its budget correctly. On this basis the parliament refused to approve the budget in 1999 and this resulted in the resignation of the Santer Commission. Do they sound like lapdogs?

[jake-the-peg]

Isn't this because of faudulent claims?

A bit like if the Government's accounts could not be signed off because there still existed fraudulent benefit claims?