National Government Ducks And Evades Responsibility For Fraud

1.08.37pm GMT Tue 15th Nov 2005

Yesterday in Strasbourg, the EU' s Court of Auditors refused, for the 11th consecutive year since new procedures were introduced, to deliver a positive Declaration of Assurance concerning the legality and regularity of EU financial spending.

Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East Midlands who is a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control, commented:

"This report is very convenient for EU national governments. It allows them to pass the buck to the EU in Brussels even though they carry out 80% of EU spending including the Common Agricultural subsidies to their own farmers."

"The finger of blame should be pointed straight at Gordon Brown and his fellow national finance ministers. Last week they refused to accept responsibility for the EU money which is spent by their own administrations. (Most recently at the ECOFIN meeting on November 8) They refused to allow EU Auditors to check how they spent the EU money."

"The public will again assume that fraud is widespread and the Brussels bureaucracy incompetent. In fact the EU administration is now subjected to greater scrutiny than that of any government in Europe."

"Neither Labour nor Conservative ministers in Britain are in a position to point any finger of blame. The accounts of our own Department for Work and Pensions in Whitehall have not been given a clean bill of health by the National Audit Office for the past 16 years!"

"Despite many improvements made by the Commission in EU accounting procedures, there is still some way to go. I welcome the Road Map which has been set up. But national ministers must accept responsibility for hiding how they spend the EU's money."

"Everyone wants public money to be spent wisely and honestly. Gordon Brown should accept responsibility, not duck, spin and evade."