Via the FT:
An attempt by the European parliament to clean up expenses led to acrimony on Thursday when a member charged with drafting reforms called its decision-making more shambolic than a village council.
Diana Wallis, a British Liberal Democrat, complained that proposals to force deputies to account for some of their €4,000 ($6,230, £3,185) a month office expenses were scrapped by senior MEPs in a closed-door meeting without warning.
Parliamentary sources said that the leaders of the two biggest political groupings, the centre-right European People’s party and the leftwing Socialists, had lobbied for changes just hours before the crunch meeting. Both are dominated by German MEPs implacably opposed to sweeping reform.
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6 Comments
The CAP, the CFP, the corruption, the incompetence, the statism, the bureaucracy and now the expenses fiddles.
It really is time to leave, isn’t it?
Thanks for posting this story. However, just to be clear I was criticising the decision-making process and what I actually said was ‘… that my own local parish council could have made a better job of it!’ I would certainly not imply that my local parish council was shambolic but rather that the EP’s Bureau was.
Bishop – No! Whatever its faults it is frankly better than the alternative.
Dafs,
What exactly are the alternatives?
Giving the UK the right to determine its own laws.
£60 Billion per year in VAT receipts retained. (that’s the figure that Brown agreed to).
Unburdening UK business from regulatory overload.
Allowing our Farmers to farm instead of running EU designated production units.
Giving us back the right of self determination.
All sounds good to me.
Oh, and don’t forget that Tractor production is on target again this year.
Dafs
Can you describe for us the awfulness of the alternative you envisage?
If you think the cost of living is expensive now it would be a lot worse outside the EU. It is no coincidence that the three most expensive places to live in the world (Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) are all outside the EU. You need a mortgage just to buy a beer in Oslo!