By Martin Banks - 11th January 2011
The EU talks of transparency but crushes whistle-blowers
Marta Andreasen
Reports from the European Court of Auditors (ECA) have been sabotaged systematically for years, according to former ECA member Maarten Engwirda.
Criticisms of fiddling with European money have been swept under the carpet regularly, claimed Engwirda, a former Dutch MEP who was a court member for 15 years and stepped down recently.
He claims that several of his colleagues, among them members from France and Italy, were guilty of sabotage and intimidation, often in order to protect national interests.
The European commission itself, he said, would "not be interested in a good budgetary control".
He said, ''All of these malpractices never came out because of the Kremlin-like information we published. But it has not been beneficial to our reputation."
The Court of Auditors checks the spending of the EU. Since its creation in 1975, the institute never gave a positive declaration of assurance on the EU budget, says Engwirda, who made his allegations in an interview with the newspaper De Volkskrant.
Reaction to his damning allegations was swift with a commission spokesman saying it had not tried to influence the European Court of Auditors.
The spokeswoman of EU commissioner Algirdas Šemeta, who is responsible for anti-fraud policy, underlined that the European Court of Auditors is completely independent.
"There is indeed a dialogue between the Court of Auditors and the commission, but that is normal and also necessary for things to function well. We have no reason to question the expertise of the Court of Auditors."
But Marta Andreasen, former commission chief accountant and UKIP MEP said, "The EU talks of transparency but crushes whistle-blowers. It speaks of probity but is a byword for financial corruption and waste. As a political entity, the EU stinks to high heaven. All that surprises me about the revelations of Engwirda is that they did not come sooner.
"I presume that his conscience got to him and he had to resign on the first of the month in order to speak the truth about the corruption and day to day fraud that goes on in EU institutions."
She added, "When I was chief accountant I experienced huge pressure to conceal the truth about EU expenditure and not voice any criticism.
"I can back up what Engwirda said as I witnessed the arm twisting of the Auditors each time they attempted to reveal the failures in the EU accounting and control systems. They came under huge pressure to keep the accountancy fraud hushed up.
"Sadly the auditors did not support me when I stood up in defence of European taxpayers. In my opinion the European Court of Auditors is not an independent body and they cannot, therefore, be relied upon.
"The structural arrangement of the EU has allowed massive irregularities and waste in EU funding and I have absolutely no hope that this situation will ever change until Britain withdraws from the EU."
