Many EU quangos 'not fit for purpose'

Monday, February 23, 2009

Many publicly-funded EU agencies are unnecessary and not fit for purpose, according to one report, while another has claimed that MEPs can become millionaires within five years.

The 'Essential Guide to EU Quangos 2009', produced by the Economic Research Council and Global Vision, said that until 1990 there were only two EU quangos but if current trends continue there could be 70 by 2026.

Claiming that EU quangos "are simply not fit for purpose in the 21st century", Ruth Lea, director of Global Vision, said they are "symptomatic of an EU which fails to appreciate that member states' economies can only recover and eventually prosper in a world which favours innovation over bureaucracy and flexibility over centralised rigidity".

And the report's co-author Dan Lewis said: "Europe is entering a deep recession, but the EU bureaucracy is stuck in a 1970s timewarp, continuing to churn out more quangos, mostly in the heart of western Europe."

At the same time, claims in the Galvin Report that the EU is beset by poor financial control have been seized on by the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA), as have suggestions that MEPs could get a 47 per cent pay rise this June and become millionaires within five years.

The Galvin Report was an audit of the expenses and allowances claimed by more than 160 MEPs. According to the TPA, the report highlighted "serious and repeated anomalies in payments for office assistance and services, including money being paid to seemingly irrelevant firms and to companies which on further investigation did not exist, were untraceable or had registered no financial activity". Some MEPs were said to be claiming their full assistance allowances but had no assistants accredited or registered and there was "widespread failure" to comply with tax, company and social security laws, with 79 per cent of transactions that should have been subject to VAT showing no evidence of either VAT payment or exemption and 90 per cent of contracts for self-employed staff showing no evidence of legally required social security payments being made.

The TPA reckoned that its own research showed that MEPs "stand to" get a 47 per cent increase in their take home pay this year through a combination of increasing pay levels, a new lower tax rate and the plunging value of the Pound to the Euro. The TPA also said that on top of their salaries MEPs can earn £1m during a typical Parliamentary term through allowances and expenses.

The TPA's Matthew Elliott said: "Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, and if anyone is stealing from them. The EU Parliament must publish the full details of all MEPs' expenses and allowances, and name the people [the Galvin] report found to be ripping taxpayers off."