EU expenses 'don't add up' for 13th time

News Article - 14 November 2007
Category: Regulatory

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has rejected signing off the European commission's (EC) expenses for the 13th consecutive year.

According to the ECA nearly 80 per cent of the EU's £75 billion budget does not comply with the auditors standards and therefore they cannot give a statement of assurance.

The issues the auditors report as areas of concern are redistributional and agricultural spending.

It claims "irregularities", suspected fraud and lack of supervision by the EC are the reasons for the budget failure.

However, EC officials claim they cannot effectively supervise the distribution of the budget when 80 per cent of it is handled by member states, reports the BBC.

It says that a third of the budget was approved last year and six per cent the previous year.

Chief accounting officer for the EC Brian Gray recently told Accountancy Age that out of 800 transactions previously examined by the ECA, four were referred as possible fraud and all were subsequently dropped.

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