Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-09-15-Speech-4-127-000"
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"en.20110915.14.4-127-000"2
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"Madam President, the title of this report is a satirist’s dream: ‘closing the gap between anti-corruption law and reality’. I could fill my 60 seconds talking about the 18 years’ worth of unaudited accounts or the bazillions that are squandered on agriculture and foreign aid, boondoggles, or the Tillack case where, instead of any of the alleged fraudsters being arrested, it was the journalist trying to find out about them who found himself banged up by the police.
I could talk about the GBP 6.6 million spent last year by European Commissioners simply on entertainment and luxury gifts and hotels. I could talk about the wonderful spectacle of President van Rompuy and Commissioner Ashton flying to the same meeting in Russia in separate private jets leaving Brussels within four hours of each other.
Instead I shall confine myself to saying this. These things happen not because the EU attracts particularly bad people. Of course it attracts some bad people – Man is fallen – and like all institutions it contains those who give in to temptation. It happens rather because there is no link between taxation, representation and expenditure at Brussels level. It was Milton Friedman who said there are two kinds of money in the world: there is your money and there is my money. The trouble in the EU is it is all your money, hence negligence, corruption, fraud and what we see before us today."@en1
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