EU fails to have its accounts signed off for the 14th consecutive year – Might not be signed off before 2020
15 September 2008
European Voice reports that Siim Kallas, the EU Commissioner for audit, has announced that the European Court of Auditors will not sign off the EU's 2007 accounts – marking the 14th consecutive year in which the EU has failed to have its accounts cleared. Auditors will say they found only a slight improvement in the legality and regularity of payments between the financial years 2006 and 2007. The Court is to publish its annual report on the EU's accounts on 10 November, but Kallas will brief his fellow Commissioners on 23 September that another negative verdict is imminent.
Speaking to MEPs, Kallas admitted that there were “real and unquestioned” weaknesses in 17 areas including research policy, the European refugee fund, structural funds, external actions and rural development.
For the Common Agricultural Policy - which amounted to 12.4 bn euros in 2007 - the auditors found that rural development expenditure, was “particularly prone to errors” because of the complexity of rules for complying with the programme. For the Structural and Cohesion Funds, worth 45.5bn euros in 2007, the auditors found that there had been an improvement, with 46% of projects free from error, compared to 31% in 2006. But in terms of financial impact the situation is almost unchanged. The Court estimated that 11% of the total amount reimbursed to member states should not have been reimbursed, compared to 12% (or 4 billion euros) in 2006.
With the Court’s verdict, MEPs have concluded that the European Commission will miss one of the declared objectives of José Manuel Barroso – to have its accounts signed off. Jan Mulder, a Dutch Liberal MEP and a member of the Budgetary Control Committee is quoted describing the improvements made under the Barroso Commission as “extremely slow. At this rate we'll achieve a positive DAS in 20 years' time.”
Weak pound to increase
EU ignores
The Telegraph reports that due to the weakness of the pound against the euro,
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times reported that “The European Union appears to be ignoring
Saturday Telegraph Sunday Times
Commission to propose harmonised maternity leave rules
EUobserver looks at the Commission’s proposal to extend the minimum length of maternity leave from fourteen to eighteen continuous weeks, including full payment of wages or salary. It is reported that under the proposal, a mother would be obliged to take compulsory maternity leave of at least six weeks after childbirth, with the remainder being taken before or after labour, depending on parents' own preference. The time of leave could also be extended in special circumstances, such as premature childbirth. In addition, the plan would give mothers the right to return to "the same job or to an equivalent post and terms and conditions," while it would be more difficult for an employer to dismiss them within one year of the end of maternity leave. An employer would also be "obliged to consider" a mother's request to adapt her working patterns and hours to the new family situation. The Commission will officially present the proposal next month.
Fine Gael warns it won't back
The Irish Independent reports that the main opposition party in
He also said that the Irish government should look at legislation in relation to the McKenna judgment on referendums, which prevents the government using exchequer money to push an argument in favour or against any referendum, "No matter what the argument might be, 50pc of the time in TV and radio debates has to be given to the opponent and the Government is prevented from giving resources. The McKenna judgment strikes me as an unhealthy state of affairs," he said.
Meanwhile, the Irish Independent also reports that the date for the local and European elections in
Irish Independent Irish Independent
On Friday EU Finance Ministers appointed Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker for a third term as President of the Eurogroup. According to the Coulisses de Bruxelles blog, Juncker actually wanted to be EU President, a plan which has been thwarted by
Coulisses de Bruxelles De Standaard
Lib Dems abandon commitment to euro
Several papers report that the Liberal Democrats have U-turned on their policy of supporting
Implying that he and his party were wrong to have pushed for entry into the euro for the past decade, Cable suggested that handing control of interest rates to the European Central Bank may have contributed to property price “bubbles” in some eurozone countries, including
He denied that the party had abandoned its core pro-EU beliefs. But in what the Observer called “an extraordinary shift,” he said it would campaign for a more decentralised, less bureaucratic EU in next year's European elections. He said: “There are things wrong with it [the EU]. The CAP [common agricultural policy] is a complete disgrace. We think there is a lot of institutional reform that is necessary. I think when we get to the European elections next year this will be a key message.”
However, PA quoted Nick Clegg saying, “Our position on the euro is absolutely unchanged. We believe that when the time is right
According to the Observer there was a furious response from some in the party, who predicted a stormy debate on
Mail Independent on Sunday Observer OE blog
EU fails to agree on allowing member states to lower sales tax rates
Over the weekend EU finance ministers failed to agree whether to allow specially reduced sales tax rates for services like restaurant meals or haircuts.
AFP The Guardian Menafn FAZ
Palmer: EU trials in absentia reform will transform
Commenting in the Sunday Telegraph on the endorsement of the UK Government of the new proposed EU law that would force member states to recognise foreign trials in absentia, Alasdair Palmer argues: “If you are found guilty in absentia by a court in another EU state, our Government will have no option but to extradite you to serve your prison sentence there”. He also argued, “That measure would be a threat to the liberty of law-abiding Britons even if every EU country had uniformly high standards of justice. No trial in absentia can be fair, and the procedure can only be justified as a last, desperate response to the most exceptional and severe conditions. (…) The idea of ‘common standards of justice’ across the EU is a bureaucratic fantasy”. He concludes: “British justice is being transformed, under the bogus rubric of ‘combating the threat of terrorism’, into a system that has all the protections and all the integrity of the Romanian or Bulgarian variety.”
Sunday Telegraph Open Europe Research
Angela Merkel has warned that EU climate policy plans will lead to rising unemployment
FTD The Guardian Deutsche Welle WSJ
Irish PM Brian Cowen has admitted that
Russia/Georgia update
The WSJ reports that Russian troops have begun pulling back from checkpoints in western
The FT reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that if
European Parliament legalises European symbols through the back door
The European Parliament has stepped up efforts to legalise the use of the European flag and hymn as official
Sam Leith argues in the Telegraph, that the “bid to put out more flags… isn't a threat, but a self-regarding waste of time and public money. (…) People cleave to the symbols that arise out of political identity; but you can't start with a set of symbols and hope to reverse-engineer an identity from them.”
NRC Handelsblad Times Euractiv Telegraph comment
The EU takes measure to lend more to small firms
EUbusiness reports that at a two-day meeting in the French Riviera city of Nice European finance ministers backed plans to hike public lending to credit-starved small and mid-sized firms, hoping to give the faltering European economy a boost. The European Investment Bank will lend 30 billion euros to such firms by 2011.
EUbusiness EUobserver WSJ IHT Nu.nl
EU criticised in global IT trading agreement negotiations
The FT reports that the EU has been accused by the US, Japan and Taiwan of breaking a global IT trading agreement’s zero-duty provisions by imposing import tariffs on some products, including flat-screen LCD monitors and set-top boxes. Gretchen Hamel, spokeswoman for the
An opinion poll by Sifo shows that 78 percent of Swedes think
“The EU cannot further be enlarged without the Lisbon Treaty”, says Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht, while questioning the “absorption capacity of the EU” with reference to the cancellation of EU funds to Bulgaria due to irregularities.