Member of European Parliament makes fraud report public

Dutch MEP Paul van Buitenen has published a confidential internal report on abuse of staff allowances described by a colleague as "dynamite".

The report highlights money paid for non-existent staff via a system of "service providers" or accountants.

He posted a short summary of the report on his website and could face a reprimand for breaching secrecy.

British Euro MP Chris Davies who leaked details of the document last month said he was delighted it was now public.

"Paul's here as a whistle-blower. They [senior parliament officials] will be angry about this but only because they will look stupid," he said.

Overpayments

Among the revelations made by the internal auditors are a large number of lay-off payments made to staff of MEPs who were not re-elected.

Ten were made to assistants even though they were working for another MEP.

And one member of staff is said to have accumulated part-time payments from 12 MEPs over a three-month period.

The auditors also refer to abuse of travel costs and expenses. In one case, the expenses amount to three times the staff member's salary.

Not everyone on the budgetary control committee is impressed with Mr van Buitenen's decision to go public with the report.

Fellow Dutch MEP Jan Mulder, who had originally been in favour of making the details public, said he would not have breached the secrecy order.

"If I've signed for it, then I would keep it confidential," he said.

British Labour MEP Eluned Morgan said she had written personally to Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, calling for the report to be made public.

"It's been handled very badly. This drip, drip, drip is not helpful. I think it should be published [in full], there's no question about that at all. This will have taken away any excuse."

A spokesman for Mr Poettering said if the rules on confidentiality had been broken, it would be up to the committee's chairman to make a complaint.

Mr van Buitenen is no stranger to censure at the hands of the EU's institutions.

He was formally reprimanded a few months ago after he publicised an account of a meeting held behind closed doors with the head of the EU's anti-fraud office, Olaf.

More famously, he was suspended in 1999 while working as an official at the European Commission after he passed allegations of fraud in the commission on to the parliament.
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BACKGROUND
Last December, the European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros, requested MEPs to disclose staff wage bills and expenses claims in detail. He received a letter from the bureau of senior MEPs refusing to comply with the request last week.

MEPs receive €15,500 every month to pay their staff. This represents a total of €140 million for the 785 members, which amounts to 10% of the Parliament's annual budget.

The report, without giving any names, reveals legal loopholes when it comes to paying assistants. The MEP can basically choose under which condition he wants to employ his assistant: either through direct employment, through a service provider or through an agent.

The report, written by a Parliament auditor, called for a status for assistants under which they would be employed and paid directly by the Parliament, which was already proposed by the Commission in 1998 but was not approved by the Council.

Parliament's Conference of Presidents yesterday (6 March) decided to entrust the institution's secretary general with the mandate to develop - together with the Commission and the Council - a new set of rules for members' assistants through an amended Contract Staff regime.

However, this new statue would preserve members' freedom to recruit their assistants and independently determine their salary levels.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• euro
• european
• parliament
• union
• fraud
• money
• tax
• brussel
• hague

[Greg260146]

MEP = Massively Expensive Parasite. Since the EU is an obscene & corrupt centralised construct engineered for the benefit of NWO the politicians, who have all but no democratic input as all is decided by the unelected commission & with over 3,000 executive committees with NO democratic input, NO respect for democracy, several known criminals on the commission & NO valid accounts for 13 years it is a matter of paying adequate bribes for the self selected MEPs to act as salesmen. EU has NO merit

[JokerFlaubie]

EU is an instrument of power over the whole continent, and a lot of power corrupts a lot

[voxhumanapipe]

Did that nasty smell,last week (mid April),

come from brussels ?

[JokerFlaubie]

im sure of that :)

[TOAFN]

Yes, Lock them up into prison. please.

The sooner the better. Before the corporate fascists take over the EU completely.

[result321]

It is ALL ABOUT MONEY. :-((

Mainly the lousy politicians are "complimented" to Brussels to get rid of them nationally.

There they are at the cratch to feed nobody else but one: THEMSELVES :-((

Thanks FOREVER you brave Irish people to halt this evil institution of greed and ignorance.

Will never be forgotten :-)))

[lumpfish99]

the eu will collapse unfortunately we will all be dead by then...

[croemar]

Demolish the EU!

[SlaveStorm]

Truthers versus the Liars. The war wages on. Choose a side. Peace or war, bad government or the people. Truth or lies.

[madzndean]

Look at Archer, they usually abuse their power's...!

[Greg260146]

Ianpbx I understand the Police were notified & there is no truth in the rumour that they will arrive soon having shaved their heads, done their gender reassignment course, donned their EU compliant kit, put on a stab proof vest when there is NO INCREASE in knife crime, read through their Political Correctness manual and filled in 14 EU target forms. They may stop off to shoot & kill an innocent person running for a tube on route. Actually they did attend but since nothing of 'VALUE' etc. etc.

[JokerFlaubie]

i agree completely.

in public offices, they never break their backs with hard work ;P

[Ianpbx]

Well we all know why these people become politicians - because in the real world that we have to live in they would be completely useless. It's why there are so many lawyers in Parliament: because they are hopeless at their job. Unfortunately, they are also hopeless as politicians. That's why Britain is run so badly.

With regard to the accounts of the Student Union, that you say Kinnock left in a bad state and books disappeared, I wonder why the police were not called in?

[Greg260146]

JokerFlaubie as a body which is not only in and of itself corrupt but which has institutionalised corruption one could well claim that in terms of its corrupting influence it can only be rivaled by one of the planet's great superstitions.