Former EU accountant writes book about her victimisation

[ibis]

So to have your budget signed-off on by auditors makes you a saint? What does that say about the EU budget not being signed-off on for 14 years? I suspect that if this had happened in this country that FG and Labour would have something to say about it.

The EU accounts already meet a higher standard than Ireland's accounts. They fail a second, self-imposed, test which no other organisation even tries to meet. As to Ireland's accounts being signed off, see for example the Comptroller General's reports on the OPW - and consider that the unaccountable spend in our quango sector is €13 billion, overseen by a raft of Ministerial appointees.

We don't expect saints. But we have every right to demand the EU produce accounts that give a true and fair view of its financial position. For the about last 13 years the EU has failed to do this. It is completely unacceptable.

It's completely false, though. Here's the 2007 opinion:

o The Court's audit opinions on the EU accounts and the transactions underlying these accounts are similar to previous years. The estimated error rates in some spending, notably that previously covered under the headings "internal policies" and "external actions", have fallen - however not enough to affect the overall picture.
o The accounts in general give a fair presentation, in all material respects, of the EU's financial position and results. The qualifications expressed in last year's annual report on the 2006 accounts are, due to the improvements that have taken place, no longer necessary for 2007.
o The Court gives unqualified (clean) opinions on the legality and regularity in certain areas, such as the Union's administration. However, for most spending areas the Court cannot provide a clean opinion. Although most of the payments the Court checks are made in compliance with the rules, the Court still finds that payments made to final beneficiaries, such as farmers and project promoters running EU-funded projects, have a too high level of error. Except for cohesion policies, the level of error in these policy area groups is in between 2 % and 5%.
o The result does not imply that cases of non-compliane are the result of fraud, nor that most transactions in these areas are illegal and/or irregular.

Please don't try to sweep the past under a rug, an awful lot of EU money still goes unaccounted for, so don't make it seem like its a thing of the past and its all ok now.

It's an ongoing effort, and it's a long way from perfect. However, the idea that it can be summarised as "riddled with fraud" remains complete bollox. Fraud levels are about €300m in a budget of €116bn, and 95% of the irregularities are in the money handled by the national governments, where accounting standards are a lot more lax.

[ibis]

So to have your budget signed-off on by auditors makes you a saint? What does that say about the EU budget not being signed-off on for 14 years? I suspect that if this had happened in this country that FG and Labour would have something to say about it.

The EU accounts already meet a higher standard than Ireland's accounts. They fail a second, self-imposed, test which no other organisation even tries to meet. As to Ireland's accounts being signed off, see for example the Comptroller General's reports on the OPW - and consider that the unaccountable spend in our quango sector is €13 billion, overseen by a raft of Ministerial appointees.

We don't expect saints. But we have every right to demand the EU produce accounts that give a true and fair view of its financial position. For the about last 13 years the EU has failed to do this. It is completely unacceptable.

It's also false, though. Here's the 2007 opinion:

o The Court's audit opinions on the EU accounts and the transactions underlying these accounts are similar to previous years. The estimated error rates in some spending, notably that previously covered under the headings "internal policies" and "external actions", have fallen - however not enough to affect the overall picture.
o The accounts in general give a fair presentation, in all material respects, of the EU's financial position and results. The qualifications expressed in last year's annual report on the 2006 accounts are, due to the improvements that have taken place, no longer necessary for 2007.
o The Court gives unqualified (clean) opinions on the legality and regularity in certain areas, such as the Union's administration. However, for most spending areas the Court cannot provide a clean opinion. Although most of the payments the Court checks are made in compliance with the rules, the Court still finds that payments made to final beneficiaries, such as farmers and project promoters running EU-funded projects, have a too high level of error. Except for cohesion policies, the level of error in these policy area groups is in between 2 % and 5%.
o The result does not imply that cases of non-compliance are the result of fraud, nor that most transactions in these areas are illegal and/or irregular.

And where are the problems in the accounts?

o In three areas: administrative and other expenditure, economic and financial affairs and revenue, the results of the Court's testing of representative samples of transactions show low estimated levels of error.
o In the largest area of Union spending - agriculture and natural resources - the estimated overall error rate is still material. Rural development, with its often complex rules, accounts for a disproportionately large part of this error rate. For European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) expenditure the Court estimates the value of the error rate to be slightly below materiality.
o As in previous years, cohesion policies, representing more than a third of the budget, are the area most affected by errors. Following the Court's sample estimate at least 11 % of the value of reimbursed cost claims should not have been paid out. Measures that have been taken to try to reduce the level of error in this area have not had time to be effective.

Not in the EU's own accounts, but in the CAP money and the cohesion policy funds - administered by the national governments (including our own, and also, of course, including those of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, etc).

Please don't try to sweep the past under a rug, an awful lot of EU money still goes unaccounted for, so don't make it seem like its a thing of the past and its all ok now.

It's an ongoing effort, and it's a long way from perfect. However, the idea that it can be summarised as "riddled with fraud" remains complete bollox. Fraud levels are about €300m in a budget of €116bn, and 95% of the irregularities are in the money handled by the national governments, where accounting standards are a lot more lax.

There are problems - real problems - with the EU. Nobody should defend those. However, most of what are put forward as "problems" here and elsewhere are not those problems - they are made-up problems.

[toxic avenger]

Actually Farage is married to a German, not a Frenchwoman. His first wife was Irish. In February he said this about refusing to stand in an EP ovation for Prince Charles:

"I just wanted to show him what I felt. He's a horse fiddler and a mug faced git, I hope he chokes"

Nigel Farage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Worth a vote, I'd have thought...