Via Sinclair’s Musings, this quite strange performance by the fanboys and girls of Young European Federalists.

Paid for with our money, natch.

Here are some more of our outgoings these young scamps got their paws on recently:

2005

34,318 euros (Running costs)
18,000 euros (Project: “Europe - a harbour or a fortress”)
49,980 euros (Project: “Give Europe a Face”)

2006

34,200 euros (Running costs)
44,078 euros (Project: Europe for Citizens)
15,000 euros (Project: “Clash of Civilizations - Search for The Common Ground”)
6,000 euros (Seminar held by the Young European Federalists of Azerbaijan)

2007

32,844 euros (Running costs)

2008

38,350 euros (Running costs)
12,000 euros (Project: “Active Youth for a Truly Democratic European Family”)
14,000 euros (Project: “Majorities for minorities - Empowering participation in heterogeneous societies”)

Plus numerous perks, such as free travel to regular Euro jamborees in the Brussels institutions, free meals, accredited lobbyist status including a free pass to Parliament, charitable status under French tax law, and free training courses.

Doubtless there are other highly important projects they’ve done that I’ve missed, but this is enough to explain why they love Europe.

I’m intrigued by reports (Word doc) that the EU’s Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, chartered a series of planes at €60,000 a time to fly around Africa.

This was in the context of diplomatic efforts to achieve peace in Somalia.

Some humanitarian aid!

It is currently being reported that on a number of occasions Commissioner Louis Michel instructed a private aircraft to be chartered at a cost of EUR 60,000 for the flight from Addis Ababa to Asmara (with a short stopover in Djibouti).

“WRITTEN QUESTION E-3024/08
by Marios Matsakis (ALDE)
to the Commission

Subject: Unidentified flying objects

At the risk of perhaps appearing non-serious, could I dare ask whether the Commission believes that this subject deserves an in-depth examination by an EU authority, perhaps in collaboration with other third country (e.g. USA and Russia) agencies? I wonder whether the Commission agrees with me that, the time has come to give the subject of the existence or not of UFOs some serious attention.”

Mr Matsakis is labouring under a burdensome illusion.

Asking the Commission to investigate flying saucers is about as non-serious as the rest of the work the Parliament does.

It’s hard to understand why the European Parliament should run an office in Scotland. But it does, and it operates from a piece of prime Edinburgh real estate called The Tun (described as an “innovative mixed-use commercial development combining a redundant brewery with a new-built element”).

The Office seems to have time on its hands. On 20 May, campaigner Bob Holman wrote in the Glasgow Herald

One of the latest outcries concerns MEPs voting against having audited reports of their financial dealings made public. Apparently, some MEPs have paid what should be private contributions to their pensions from money claimed for their parliamentary duties. If this is true, it is unlikely that prosecutions will follow.

Christian Aid and similar agencies stand for a different set of values. Staff do not enrich themselves. Many volunteers offer their time and money freely - they give, and don’t take. They believe in reducing, not maintaining, inequality. They are an antidote to social evils.

This was picked up by John Edward, head of the European Parliament Office. Keen to protect his masters in Brussels, he replied on 23 May, raising an enormous cloud of dust around the auditor’s report, and concluding thus:

“Mr Holman can be reassured the parliament’s services verify all payments to MEPs and their assistants and any possible mistakes or irregularities are addressed.”

Given the context - heavy and detailed discussion of MEPs’ expenses in Europe’s media - this is so blatant a lie that it’s hard to measure the man’s chutzpah. Accounts are audited on a spot check basis. Receipts do not have to be produced. The News of the World has recently exposed the mile-wide loopholes that some MEPs are exploiting to enrich themselves personally.

Two commenters picked this up on the Herald website, and the reponses must have stung. Somebody called Victor writes “your re-assurance is extremely hard to ‘understand’ - even less to seriously believe!”.

But Mr Edward hasn’t made any effort to correct his statement, and why should he? He got twice as many commenters supporting his wild claim. In any case, Propaganda 101 says that a statement doesn’t have to be true - just making the claim is enough to push your message, regardless of any objections. It’s now in the public domain. If you come under serious assault, you move to stage two, explained by Paul Ginsborg in his biography of Silvio Berlusconi:

“…Irene Pivetti, the Northern League’s young and controversial choice as speaker of the House of Deputies, declared how well women had been treated under Fascism.

The rhetorical strategy behind such declarations always follows the same pattern. The statement is first made in brutal and uncompromising fashion. Uproar follows. Depending upon the volume of protest, a partial retraction or “clarification” is then forthcoming. But the damage has been done, and as the wily Christian Democrat Giulio Andreotti once said: ‘A “retraction” always means that a piece of information has been communicated twice’”

Last week DG Communications (headed by Margot Wallstrom) published a proposal to change EU Regulation 1049/2001 on access to documents. The proposed changes have been heavily criticised by Sweden’s justice minister, the Swedish union of journalists, and UK-based Statewatch.

So far so good. However, in a normal democracy this would offer the chance to start a dialogue. DG Comms would respond to the criticisms, perhaps by clarifying its position, perhaps by defending the proposals.

This is surely an important part of the legislative process, no? A bit of give and take. I see it happening at a national level in France, Italy, the UK… I presume it happens in the Nordic countries. You’d expect it all the more from an organisation whose remit is communication.

But the Directorate General for Communications is off. Not even on standby. Margot hasn’t published a press release, given an interview, or uttered a squeak.

I can think of two possible reasons.

One is that DG Comms doesn’t give a rat’s arse what anybody thinks of its proposals.

Two is that they don’t feel the criticisms have come through the proper channels. They’re waiting for parliament to say something, because it’s too difficult to cope with the chaotic nature of the press and the lobby groups.

My money’s on the second.

My recommendation is that DG Comms takes its life in its hands and gets involved in the fray. The Commission is constantly complaining about how the press aren’t engaged with EU affairs, but they do little to encourage them. Pulling up the drawbridge as soon as you’ve published a new proposal is the surest way to turn people off.

They should study how democracy happens at a national level, where the press is rowdy and may often get things wrong, but at least they get people talking.

Members of the European Parliament, I hope you’re watching the political news from Britain.

A minor taxpayers’ revolt is going on. Transparency is on the agenda, and expense accounts are being opened up to public scrutiny.

These (admittedly small) changes are both setting new standards in Europe, and letting the UK catch up with the transparency standards our continental friends already enjoy, particularly in the Nordic countries.

Littlejohn in the Daily Mail:

According to parliamentary expenses smuggled out under the radar last Friday, Tony Blair remortgaged his constituency home in Geordieland for £300,000  -  twice what it was worth. He then claimed back the interest payments from the British taxpayer.

Someone please explain to me which bit of this isn’t stealing.

Even a blind man can hit a dartboard occasionally. Even Kilroy-Silk can ask a question which elicits an interesting reply from the Commission.

29 April 2008 E-2538/08
 
WRITTEN QUESTION by Robert Kilroy-Silk (NI) to the Commission 

Subject: UK Parliament and the EU 
 
Will the Commission give full details of the occasions on which the UK Parliament has commented on EU legislation including: (a) the date of the comment, (b) the legislation in question, and (c) the response of the Commission.

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission (22.5.2008)

Copies of national parliaments’ contributions and the Commission’s replies are sent to Parliament (department for relations with national parliaments). No doubt the Honourable Member will be kept informed in this way.

Finally, it should be noted that the House of Lords sent eighteen contributions to the Commission in 2007, while the House of Commons contacted the Commission twice during the same period.

Open Europe has a hilarious summary of a survey on parliamentary expenses. They asked UK MEPs six questions about how they spend their staff allowances and whether they are properly accounted for.

This seems to have given some MEPs a fit of outraged indignation. After all, they are special. How dare anyone ask them what they spend taxpayers’ money on? But see how they squirm:

Veteran Conservative MEP Christopher Beazley said, “I would have to question the legality of these questions. What right do you have to ask these?” He argued that MEPs’ taxpayer funded expense claims were not “a public matter”, that it was “private”. Ironically, he also insisted that, “everything I do is as transparent as possible”.

Lib Dem MEP Bill Newton-Dunn accused us of “muck-raking”, and of being “biased”.

Labour MEP Richard Corbett’s office claimed that Open Europe was “not interested” in transparency and that we were just “nut cracking”.

Conservative MEP Malcolm Harbour also accused us of “muck-raking” and threatened: “If you value your relationship with the Conservative Party I would recommend that you think very carefully about continuing with this… I regard the whole exercise as completely unnecessary.”

Only 19 out of 79 MEPs were prepared to provide full answers. 14 MEPs replied, but gave only partial answers, while 46 simply refused to answer the questions.

The full breakdown is available from Open Europe’s website.

The Commission’s nineteenth-century attitude to transparency

Sometimes it’s clear MEPs are totally clueless about how the EU works.

For example the Commission gives out hundreds of millions of euros every year in grants to NGOs. These are sometimes famous organisations like Oxfam, and sometimes obvious political campaigners like the European Movement. Some do excellent work, others are a parasitic drain on the taxpayer.

You’d think Parliament would have a strong grip of the issues - carefully monitoring how taxpayers’ money is spent, holding people accountable, their eagle eyes watching out for irregularities.

But despite the colossal amounts involved, MEPs regularly bleat “can the Commission please tell me which NGOs it is funding?” And the Commission replies “No, we can’t. We can’t account simply and comprehensively for the money we give out. Please check the website of individual DGs where you may or may not be able to find some peremptory and meaningless list of grants”.

They then send you to this page from which you can sometimes gather some outdated and amateurishly presented lists that tell you nothing. A typical example is this one-page PDF from the DG for Economic and Financial Affairs. It lists grants from 2006 and seems to represent the most recent information available.

So when MEPs ask the same question over and over again do they not appear dimwitted?

Just ask again. And again.

On 18 September last year, Chris Heaton-Harris asked “Have any of the following organisations ever received money from the European Commission, and if so how much and over what period of time?” He then listed hundreds of obscure NGOs like Eurodad and OBESSU, as well as better known euro fan-boys like the Federalists.

The day before, Kilroy-Silk had asked for a rundown of EU funded organisations, to be met with waffle and hand-waving from Commissioner Grybauskaité

On 20 November 2007, Daniel Hannan asked which of the hundreds of NGOs attending the Agora took EU money. In February this year he wanted to know about a hundred more.

The Commission always provides an answer, but that answer is rarely designed to provide enlightenment. Furthermore, it frequently sends the salient details in the form of an attachment which disappears into the bowels of Parliament’s secretariat.

On 25 February, MEP Georgiou asked the Commission which Greek cultural NGOs it was funding. Recently, Bart Staes asked about the €800 million (yes, eight hundred million) paid to the International Organisation for Migration. MEPs Muscardini and Angelilli have asked which NGOs are getting funds in Afghanistan. Roger Helmer has asked about funding for the Church of England.

Amazingly, this week Ingeborg Graessle went back to square one, acting as if nobody had ever raised the question before: “How many NGOs currently receive financial support from the Commission, broken down by policy field and area of operation?”

This isn’t simply an insult to the people who provide the money. It’s cretinous.

The damage they do

Moreover, unpleasant facts about EU funding of NGOs in Palestine have started emerging which can be directly attributable to the Commission’s lack of transparency. Steinberg’s extraordinary report “Europe’s Hidden Hand” attempts, despite energetic EU obfuscation, to expose how money is reaching extremist propaganda organisations dedicated to verbally attacking Israel.

EU-funded Miftah is just one example:

…despite claiming to be non-partisan, in other areas of its work Miftah has described Israel as an apartheid state and reflects an immoral equivalence in equating terrorist attacks and IDF operations against terrorists which accidentally harm civilians. In addition, Miftah has referred to suicide bombers as “resistance fighters”.

More details of the report are beyond the scope of this article, but it’s well worth a read to understand that nobody really knows where our money is going in the middle east and what it’s being used for.

What is to be done?

The situation is intolerable. It’s nothing less than a refusal by the Commission to accept responsibility for spending our money accountably.

It also represents a dismal failure by MEPs to keep an eye on the executive.

Something must be done. The answer is obvious and comes in three parts:

1. Currently, the Financial Regulation obliges each DG to provide a minimum of information about grants they hand out. They often meet this legal obligation by publishing a meaningless and poorly-presented XL sheet at the end of the financial year, listing names and amounts. But nothing about what the money is for.We should force the Commission to provide full details of grant recipients, and to disclose what the money was intended for. They should do this within a month of the grant being awarded.

2. The Commission should force NGOs to disclose in general terms that they’re funded by our money, and publish specific details of what they’re spending it on. This openness should be a basic condition for receiving a grant. Within the limits of commercial confidentiality, this requirement should extend to third party organisations  commissioned by or working in partnership with, the main grant recipient.

3. MEPs should make an effort to avoid repeating the same questions over and over again. The Commission is highly practised at swatting them away.Instead, MEPs should cooperate to pool their knowledge, perhaps by setting up an independent website with the help of one of the political groups. This site would provide a clearing house in which MEPs would explain to the public what they know about the hundreds of millions of euros the Commission distributes to its clients.

The stakes are rising

Grasping the breathtaking extent of Commission funding for NGOs ain’t easy. But as NGOs become more important, the stakes rise. We already fund dozens of politically-motivated organisations, and the chances of our money funding extremists are rising. A revolution in the Commission’s nineteenth-century attitude to transparency is the only way to ensure our money is spent well and wisely.

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2765/08
by Robert Kilroy-Silk (NI)
to the Commission

Subject: Talk through the EU Anthem

Will the Commission advise the two English football teams, Chelsea and Manchester United, appearing in the UEFA Champions League Final in Moscow in May, to chat together, sit down or walk away, when the so-called ‘European anthem’ is played?