Same Old, Same Old

Reported levels of suspected fraud and other "irregularities" in the European Union budget increased to £1.6 billion, up by 25% from last year and the cost of the unaccounted for funding to British taxpayers is £233 million, according to new figures.

Using reports from national authorities, EU officials have calculated that fraudsters stole at least £415 million from Brussels projects in 2010, a figure that is thought to be the tip of the iceberg.  The latest findings come amid a politically heated debate over a demand from the European Commission to increase spending by 11% in the next EU financing period, 2014 to 2020, at a time of national austerity programmes.

The European commissioner responsible for tackling fraud, claimed that the rise was due to new systems for reporting problems and that the EU was getting better at detecting wrongdoing in the administration of funds worth more than £100 billion a year.  He said:

"More irregularities are detected by member states so more misused money can be returned to the EU budget."

My, how reassuring.  Perhaps a more robust approach to actually preventing this theft could be employed too?

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