MEP expenses scandal: 58 million euros missing
17 March 2008
- Tillack: “we are not talking about a few black sheep but a flock which covers half the parliament.”
- Poettering counter-attacks British culture of nepotism
Hans Martin Tillack reports on the growing MEP expenses scandal in Stern. The paper has seen a further report on expenses fraud. On his blog he notes that for a time MEPs were supposed to account for how they spent their 17,000 euro a month office allowance. But despite this for the years 2004 and 2005 receipts worth 58 million euros have not been produced.
Tillack comments that “we are not talking about a few black sheep but a flock which covers half the parliament.” He says the decision of the Parliament’s Committee to vote to keep the first report on expenses fraud secret shows how unreformed the EU is. He comments that “A serious discussion is hardly possible. Because the parliamentarians deny themselves the facts - or even insure that they are completely unknown to them.” He notes speculation about various German MEPs cannot be rebutted because the facts are being kept secret. Since 2006 the problem has been “solved” because MEPs no longer have to produce actual receipts but just a log of what the money has been spent on. He comments: “Oh miracles, they now find it much easier to comply.” He criticises the inhibitions of the
On his blog Telegraph correspondent Bruno Waterfield notes that Parliament President Hans Gert Poettering brushed aside criticism at Friday’s summit. He blamed the problem of different political cultures across the EU, singling out nepotism in the
Northern Rock faces huge job losses to comply with EU competition rules
The Times reports that Northern Rock faces being shrunk to half its present size, with big job losses, under plans drawn up to satisfy European Union competition rules. Alistair Darling will tell Brussels today that he wants to continue giving state aid to the bank, which was nationalised last month after ministers decided it was the only way to get it through its troubles. But the radical slimming down, which could mean that thousands of the bank’s 6,500 jobs will go, is judged by the Treasury to be necessary to meet the EU’s stringent rules for helping firms.
The Sunday Times reported that Denmark’s biggest banks have written to the European Commission to complain about the behaviour of Northern Rock in the Danish savings market. In the first formal attack on Northern Rock’s conduct lodged with European authorities, the Danish banks claim the publicly owned bank enjoys an “unfair competitive advantage”.
EU leaders urge Polish Government to avoid a referendum
The Irish Times reports that
Meanwhile, Law and Justice is also calling for legal guarantees that prevent further changes to the Treaty. The party argues that the special addendum to the ratification bill is needed so that "homosexual marriages cannot be imposed on us" and that Polish property rights are secure on territory taken from
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Brown outmanoeuvred by
Saturday’s press reported that the EU’s hopes of spearheading a global post-Kyoto climate change accord were jeopardised when
The Guardian reported that
The Independent reported that EU leaders also agreed to take action to counter unfair competition from less eco-friendly countries such as the
Roland Rudd, Chairman of Business for New Europe, had a letter in Saturday’s Independent in which he argued that “the business community supports the need for European action” on climate change.
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EU 24 hour car lights directive to cost motorists £140 million a year
EU plans for car lights to be kept on all day will cost British motorists £140 million a year and damage the environment, according to Lib Dem MP Norman Baker. Government figures show that the plans will increase fuel consumption by 0.5 percent. Baker says that as well as the extra cost to drivers, the measures will put an extra 250,000 tonnes of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
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EU Commission: biofuels are leading to higher food prices – but it’s all
EUobserver has a news feature on the EU’s controversial target of 10% of transport fuel coming from biofuels by 2020. It notes that last week, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, Josette Sheeran, said that high oil prices, low food stocks and the push for biofuels was creating a "perfect storm" that will cause "new hunger" around the world and called on the EU to "give more thought to its biofuels policy and targets." Also last week, the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor John Beddington, warned that the rush towards biofuels is threatening world food production and the lives of billions around the planet.
The EU Commission dismissed the criticism, however. Ferran Tarradellas, the Energy Commissioner's Spokesperson, said "High food prices right now are instead a product of low harvests, growing demand in
EU Agriculture Spokesperson Michael Mann blamed the
NATO Secretary General calls for EU and NATO to have “equal access” to troops;
Calls for new “Atlantic Charter”
Gawain Towler’s blog notes Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s speech on Saturday, where he said the troops which can be requested by NATO should be “equally available” to the EU. He also called for efforts to eliminate duplication between the two organisations by pooling capabilities and harmonising training.
He said “I believe that taking NATO reform seriously means also to look for more synergies with the European Union. I would like to see much more pooling of our capabilities, especially in areas such as vital enablers, transport and helicopters, or in research and development, or in harmonising our force structures and training methods. After all we only have one common set of national defence budgets and national military forces.”
“So it is absolutely critical that all of the capabilities that we are able to generate from this pool of forces are equally available to both NATO and the EU. If we duplicate, or go off in different directions, we will both fail. That is why our Finance Ministers should want closer NATO-EU cooperation just as much as our Foreign and Defence Ministers. It is why a new Strategic Concept should be unequivocal about the need for more NATO-EU cooperation. And it is why the elaboration of a new Strategic Concept for NATO should take account of the EU’s efforts to update its own European Security Strategy – and vice versa.” He called for these principles to be written into what he described as a new version of the “Atlantic Charter”.
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Booker: Commission sides with
In his column in the Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker looks at a Tibet-based charity, ApTibet, which in the past has helped people victims of humanitarian catastrophes. It is noted that “No charity would be better placed to save lives” in the wake of the recent natural disaster in the Chinese
Booker also looks at the small Finnish island Aland, which has threatened to block ratification of the Lisbon Treaty over a “snus” ban imposed by the EU.
EU threatens curbs on US flights
The EU has threatened to curb the number of flights from the
‘Heavyweight’ ought to get EU President job, says poll
A Harris poll for the FT shows that more than three-quarters of people surveyed in
EU rejects plea to outlaw 'dangerous' food colours linked to hyperactivity in children
EU food regulators have rejected calls to ban additives, including artificial colours and preservatives, which are linked to hyperactive behaviour in children. While some
The FT reports that Arsenal’s Emirates stadium is to host the meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown later this month, as the ground is “seen as the home of French football in
Sarkozy claims his Mediterranean Union plan is taken seriously by other EU leaders
Despite reports last week that the Mediterranean Union idea had received a lukewarm reaction from EU leaders, the Coulisses de Bruxelles blog reports that Nicolas Sarkozy boasted in front of the media on Thursday evening that the idea had been welcomed “unanimously, and with great enthusiasm” by his counterparts at the EU summit. In an hour-long speech to the press at
An article in Le Monde reports on the increase in temporary jobs around the EU. 32 million people work in temporary jobs today, compared with 22 million in 1997.
Sarkozy to enter more “sober” second chapter of his presidency
There are several reports on planned changes to Nicolas Sarkozy’s style of presidency following his party’s major setback in the second round of the local elections yesterday. A major government reshuffle has been ruled out, but Sarkozy’s spokesman, David Martinon, has lost his job after bungling a campaign to be elected Mayor of Neuilly.
Gideon Rachman on EU summits: “it is often difficult to see the point”
FT Chief Foreign Affairs Columnist Gideon Rachman recounts his experience attending EU summits and notes that “as an outsider, it is often difficult to see the point.” In the area of foreign policy, he writes that Europeans “can look a bit ridiculous, as they go around proposing world-changing initiatives that are greeted with polite yawns elsewhere. But irrelevance is not such a bad fate. The
Eurozone inflation surges as Euro strengthens
Eurozone inflation has reacheds a 14-year high. However, EU leaders on Friday issued a rare statement of collective concern about the damaging effects on
With one month to go to national elections in
European Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot has said that the Commission will step up efforts to make airlines compensate many more passengers for delays and cancellations – airlines could be fined £5,000 per passenger if they have falsely claimed that an incident was beyond their control.
A Sunday Times poll put the Conservatives on 43 percent, Labour on 27 percent and the Lib Dems on 16 percent.
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