EU "president" Van Rompuy seems to think that ordinary Europeans are stupid

Herman is tweeting:
 Herman Van Rompuy ‏@euHvR12 Apr

Every year around 1 trillion € is lost to tax evasion & avoidance. Unfair to citizens, companies & serious problem for member states

EU "president" Herman Van Rompuy is desperately trying to find a pseudo activity that he thinks will be popular among European citizens, who are increasingly skeptic about the costly - and failed - euro rescue policies. The haiku poet seems to think that tax evasion is the golden opportunity to make the EUSSR popular again:

The fight against tax evasion will be on the agenda of the next European Union summit in May, EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Friday.

"Every year a trillion euros are lost in tax evasion and tax avoidance" in Europe, Van Rompuy said in a video message. "I have decided to put tax evasion on the agenda of the next May 22" summit.

Van Rompuy, who chairs the talks between the bloc's 27 leaders, said the amount lost each year equalled the GDP of Spain, the EU's fifth biggest economy, and was 100 times the size of the 10-billion-euro bailout just agreed for Cyprus.

"Tax evasion is unfair to citizens" as well as to companies, Van Rompuy said. "We simply cannot afford or tolerate tax complacency."

A renewed drive to stamp out tax fraud has launched in Europe amid a scandal embroiling French President Francois Hollande's government and is likely to figure prominently at talks in Dublin on Friday and Saturday between the EU's finance ministers.

However, Van Rompuy is seriously underestimating the intelligence of European citizens, who,according to an old Scandinavian saying, are not prepared to accept a goat guarding a cabbage patch:

The European Union is still wasting billions every year, spending watchdogs said today as they refused to sign off  official accounts - again.

It is the 18th successive year that the Court of Auditors has said the EU’s finances were in such a mess that they could not be given a clean bill of health. In fact errors are still on the rise.

It included a ‘special premium’ paid to a farmer for 150 sheep which did not exist and 200,000 euros paid for a two-storey "laboratory" for producing fruit in Lombardy, Italy which inspectors found had ‘predominantly the charters of a private residence’.

The revelations will heap pressure on David Cameron who suffered a humiliating Commons defeat last week as Labour and Tory rebels united to demand he insist on a cut on the vast budget at talks next month.

The 27 member states and the executive Commission stand accused of failing to do enough to track billions of pounds in spending at a time when countries are imposing deep spending cuts at homes.

The Court of Auditors said that errors in EU payments had risen to 3.9 per cent from the 2011 budget of almost 130billion euros (£104billion).

It added that there were ‘too many cases of EU money not hitting the target or being used sub-optimally’.

Read the entire article here

And it is so easy for an overpaid bureaucrat, like Van Rompuy - who barely pays any taxes himself - to talk about other peoples' tax evasion: 

A ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice upheld the long-held exemption that spares former EU officials from paying national taxes on their EU earnings.

Instead, they pay a special low-rate EU community tax that starts at just eight per cent.

It means former EU commissioners, including Lord Kinnock and Lord Mandelson, can receive their five-figure taxpayer-funded pensions at far lower tax rates than are paid by other British citizens.

The decision is bound to infuriate millions of pensioners.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: “Tax, for Eurocrats, is something that happens to other people.”

Robert Oxley, Campaign Manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers are fed up of funding the lavish lifestyle of EU staff while having to tighten their own belts at home. This ruling is further evidence that the EU elite is out of touch with reality.” --

Recent research showed that European taxpayers are now spending £1billion a year on pensions for retired officials. British taxpayers contributed around £135million in 2010.

The Luxembourg court ruling upholds a “privileges and immunities” protocol that dates back more than 50 years.

Read the entire article here

Not a (Europe) day without new EU fraud and corruption

Happy Europe Day on May 9! Let´s celebrate with "Connie´s Glacier Special"

EU fraud and corruption cases are now so numerous that they are seldom even reported in the main media. Here are just a couple of the latest examples:

NEARLY 6,000 Andalucian firms have been accused of misusing 23 million euros of EU funding.
The companies allegedly took grants to create new jobs for the unemployed and then laid them off.
In order to qualify for the grants – between 1,500 and 3,000 euros per employee – companies were expected to offer jobseekers a permanent contract and keep them on the payroll for at least four years.
However, according to the Employment minister Manuel Recio, in at least 3,790 cases the new employees were fired as soon as the grant was paid out.
The latest findings come after an investigation into the job history of 15,063 people.
And the numbers are expected to be even higher as 44,177 people are still to be investigated.

Read the entire article here

Italian authorities investigate suspected fraud network in EU-funded research projects

05 May 2011 | 13:58 | FOCUS News Agency

Home / European Union

Brussels. Italian authorities announced today in Milan that, on the basis of information and assistance received from OLAF and the European Commission, the Italian judiciary has concluded a criminal investigation into a suspected fraud network in EU-funded research projects. The investigation in Italy concerns 22 projects with a total amount of funding paid of more than 50 million euro and is part of a broader OLAF investigation.
“Thanks to intensive cooperation over several years between OLAF, the European Commission, the Italian judiciary and Guardia di Finanza, a very sophisticated fraudulent network affecting the EU’s research budget has been eliminated. This case shows that OLAF and the European Commission by working closely together with judicial authorities in the Member States can successfully fight fraud against the EU budget,” said OLAF Director-General Giovanni Kessler, the press service of OLAF announced.
Evidence initially collected by the Commission (DG Information Society and Media) in the course of its audit work has been combined with information gathered by OLAF. Networks of inter-related companies operating in several Member States are suspected of claiming reimbursements of non-existent expenses in an organised manner using fictitious companies as partners or sub-contractors of research project consortia.
The suspected fraudulent activities were organised in a very sophisticated manner, with the intention of deceiving the Commission's control mechanisms. The organisational structures created were deliberately opaque and span several countries. Some of the methods used are similar to those used in money laundering and other organised crime schemes.

No end to EU waste and fraud

There is no end to the massive abuse and embezzlement of European Union money. The latest fraud reports come from Bulgaria:

The European Union anti-fraud office OLAF is currently investigating more than twice as many cases of abuse and embezzlement of EU funds in Bulgaria compared with the previous record-holder year, 2009.
The information was reported Tuesday by the Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, citing data they have received from OLAF.
The current probes involving funds from the agriculture program SAPARD and funds for farming subsidies and development of rural regions are 65, compared to 26 at the end of 2009.
In 2009, when Bulgaria ranked first among countries with violations, there have been a total of 68 EU funds abuse probes in Bulgaria while they have now reached 85.

After farming, the largest number of violations is noted in the structural funds used for regional development, funds for the environment, human resources, and the so-called "external assistance" funds slated by the EU for the development of third countries.

Official EU promotional video

The money paid by the Structural Funds is the EU´s second biggest source of funding after the Common Agricultural Policy. Billions of euros of tax payers´ money are distributed to over 646,000 projects across 271 regions in the 27 members states. Last year the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in cooperation with the Financial Times created a unique database tracking the money, which in many cases have gone into the pockets of criminals, inluding members of the mafia.

The Bureau, in collaboration with the Financial Times, has created the only comprehensive database tracking every penny distributed through the EU’s Structural Funds to date.

As Europeans face the uncertainty of swingeing government cuts, the European Union continues to spend. Its structural fund programme distributes €347bn of European taxpayers’ money across 271 regions in 27 countries.
Yet a web of bureaucracy has hidden this spending. Even MEPs have not had a truly transparent view of the organisations getting the funds.
Over eight months the Bureau and the FT have collected data relating to billions of euros to reveal, for the first time, the 646,000 recipients that have received the funds.

Our research reveals:

• How Italy’s most dangerous mafia, the ndrangheta, has become an expert at getting its hands on these funds
• A decentralised, cumbersome and weak system allows, and rarely punishes, fraud and misuse
• Millions of euros are going to multinational companies to help them move factories within the union despite guidelines discouraging this practice
• Funds have been used to finance a hotel building boom on protected nature reserves in Spain
• The lack of thorough checks means money is being wasted
• Some of the world’s largest companies are receiving funding despite the programme being aimed at small and medium-sized companies

Read the entire article here.

"Europe's Missing Millions" - a BBC programme

Over the last seven years, the European Union has paid out billions of Euros in grants designed to revitalise Europe's poorest regions.
But an investigation for File on 4 has revealed the extent to which these payments are open to widespread fraud, abuse and mismanagement.
Angus Stickler tracks how money has gone astray across the 27 member states and asks why funding continues in regions with proven records of corruption and fraud. Throughout the EU there is evidence that money has been wasted or even stolen. In Southern Italy, money has gone to Mafia-controlled construction companies and bogus energy projects. Across the EU expensive projects lie unused and unfit for purpose, despite receiving funding of millions of Euros

Listen to the BBC File on 4 programme here.

Link to the FT and Bureau of Investigative Journalism structural funds database

PS

The European Union has created an impervious bureacratic jungle, which - in spite of the efforts of its tiny anti-fraud office OLAF -  is impossible to control. Therefore, one thing is certain: Waste and fraud will continue to grow, until the tax payers have had enough.

Rotten Russia - a corrupted mafia state

Jamison Firestone, an American lawyer, who opened a law firm in Moscow in 1993, tells a sad story in the Foreign Policy Magazine about the criminal mafia state Russia:

When I opened my law firm, Firestone Duncan, in Moscow in 1993, I was aware of the dangers of doing business in Russia. The stories about "mafia" groups of tracksuited thugs extorting businesses were well known to me. What I never expected was that the Russian mafia would merge with the government; its members are now the same officials who are supposed to be protecting the public. (...)
The scale of the crime and the coverup is truly astounding. It directly involves the Russian deputy interior minister, the deputy general prosecutor, the head of the economic counterespionage unit of the secret police, the heads of Moscow Tax Offices 25 and 28, and a dozen judges, as well as hundreds of functionaries throughout the system. But the Kremlin has shown little willingness to prosecute this case. Instead, Medvedev has tried to deflect attention away from it and portray Sergei's case as an important investigation of Russian prison conditions after a possible death in detention due to "negligence."

As this farce plays out, Medevedev continues to make reassuring statements that he is serious about fighting corruption, that the rule of law is sound, and that international investors have nothing to fear in Russia. It is clear that the Kremlin is prepared to let things lie.

"The Russian Untouchables"  video gives more detailed information about the case Firestone is describing in his article.

"Watch Russian tax officials who stole $230 million from their people getting $43 million richer. See them buying multi-million dollar properties on Palm Jumeriah in Dubai, in Montenegro and Moscow, and getting payments to their Swiss bank accounts and offshore firms. Russian authorities refused to investigate the $230 million theft and declared these tax officials honest victims. Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year anti-corruption lawyer who exposed their scam, was tortured and killed".

PS

US defense secretary  Robert Gates has, according to leaked cables described Russia as “an oligarchy run by the security services”. The Sergei Magnitsky case is further proof that Gates is right. Putin´s Russia is a rotten, corrupted, criminal mafia state, which should be thrown out from all democratic organisations and fora. But Europe´s leaders and the Obama administration still treat the third rate KGB spy Vladmir Putin and his puppet president Medvedev as respected colleagues. Putin´s Russia is EU´s (and soon apparently also NATO´s) revered "strategic partner". Obama considers the "reset" with this mafia state a high priority.

This behavior by the Western countries is shameful and should be condemned by all decent people!

EU fraud

(More about the yellow Ferrari in the end of this post)

Britain, The Netherlands and Sweden on Tuesday withheld approval of the Europen Union´s accounts for 2009. With this symbolic move the three countries wanted to highlight their concerns over a budget that is mostly spent on agriculture subsidies and funds for poorer member countries.

"The slow pace of reforms to the financial management of EU funds is detrimental to the credibility of the EU budget as a whole," the three countries said in a joint statement. The trio - noting that there has been insufficient progress in combating EU fraud - also pointed out that the EU´s own auditors had failed to give an unqualified sign-off to the Union´s accounts for 16 consecutive years.
The reaction from the Commission was, as always, the usual one:
A Commission official pointed to marked improvements in the auditors’ annual reports on the EU budget in recent years, and said that it was pushing for more transparency from member states as part of a package of reforms.

Some of you may still remember this report from November last year:

A new report has revealed that the amount of EU funding lost in fraud and "irregular payments" last year almost doubled to €1.3bn.Fraudulent use of EU cash includes claims for a lemon and orange grove orchard that did not actually exist on the Italian island of Sicily.

In another case, thousands of euros were paid out to livestock owners in Slovenia for "non-existent" cattle.

According to the European commission's "Fight Against Fraud" report, irregularities in the common agricultural policy (CAP), which accounts for about half the EU budget, cost €1.2bn, up 23 per cent.

However, the worst area for fraud in 2009 was cohesion policy, where funds go to Europe's poorest regions and which takes up more than one third of the whole EU budget.

Suspected fraud and irregularities in this area was €1.2bn last year, up a huge 109 per cent.

An estimated one euro in every five handed out in aid was said to be "siphoned off by corrupt officials".

About two-thirds of alleged EU fraud concerns just six countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain.

The revelations come after EU leaders agreed to a 2.9 per cent increase in the EU budget for 2011 and as member states introduce tough austerity measures.

Ukip MEP Marta Andreasen, who was sacked from her job as the European commission's chief accountant after she blew the whistle on the state of the EU's accounts, was quick to respond. She said, "Why does the EU allow this situation to continue?

Also then, a typical reaction from the Commission:

A European commission spokesman said, "We take the issue of fraud very seriously and have made considerable efforts to improve the system for finding and dealing with it."

Opens Europe has published a list with "100 examples of EU fraud and waste". It makes interesting reading. Here is just one item from the list:

A dentist in Cosenza used EU funds to buy a yellow Ferrari Testarossa, which sells at around €200,000 and a Formula One car, along with 55 other luxury cars, which he stored in warehouses. He received EU money by inventing a solar-panel business that never saw the light of day. The dentist was part of a larger fraud scheme involving a staggering €80 million, in which four business organisations siphoned off funds during a four year period to buy luxury items such as cars, motorbikes and yachts

PS

The sad reality is that EU fraud continues and even grows, and no-one ever gets sacked for misspending or fraud. Only the whistleblowers loose their jobs. 1.