Taxpayers deserve their government to properly account for EU money

Emma McClarkin, Conservative MEP for the East Midlands, believes that most EU governments are holding European taxpayers in contempt for failing to properly account for millions of their money.

Miss McClarkin supports the Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament Timothy Kirkhope’s demand for the European Commission to ‘name and shame’ those countries failing to live up to their commitments.



The Conservatives’ call comes as the European Court of Auditors published their report on the 2008 Budget. The Report showed that once again the European institutions’ improvements have enabled the court to give a clean opinion on the reliability of the 2008 accounts, and improvements had been made in agriculture, which had previously been one of the major areas of error.

However, the court is still highly critical of spending in the areas of ‘cohesion’ and ‘research, energy and transport’ as well as ‘development and enlargement’.



Miss McClarkin has said that, while the commission should not forget its ultimate responsibility to manage these funds effectively, the finger of blame should largely be pointed at national governments. She highlights the fact that around 80 percent of all EU monies are spent by national governments and agencies and that they are not putting in place necessary national controls on EU spending.



It was during negotiations over the 2007-13 budget round, that national governments entered into an agreement with the European Commission and MEPs. At this time the governments pledged to introduce a system of self-certification for the EU monies they spend. So far, only a handful of countries have done so – including the UK. 


Miss McClarkin said:



“The European Commission has finally come up to an acceptable level in its own accounting procedures which now saves it from the annual embarrassment of being unable to get its accounts approved.



“For the first time we have seen welcome improvements in agriculture spending which is undoubtedly good news for the largely rural East Midlands. Yet once again in the area of regional funding the accounts fall short.



“Regional funding has been important to developing the economy across the EU but it must be accounted for. It falls on national governments to take greater responsibility for ensuring our money is not vulnerable to errors.



“EU governments know what they must do to quell the auditors’ concerns but are so far unwilling to do it. The failure to give this matter urgent attention shows contempt towards European taxpayers.

“The UK Taxpayer deserves to know how their money has been spent by the EU and, if it has been lost in fraud, to know that action will be taken to prevent this from happening again in the future.”