EU corruption
Keith Parkins - 12.06.2004 14:30
Corruption in the EU makes the mafia look like a quiet family business.
For the last nine years, the auditors have refused to sign off the Commission accounts. But everything proceeds as business as usual.
Corruption and nepotism is rife within the EU.
Whenever corruption allegations are raised, those blowing the whistle are fired, forced into hiding or forced out on medical grounds.
In 1989, Calvin Williams, a qualified British auditor, draw to the attention of then Prime Minister Margaret Thacher allegations of fraud. He was smeared as a nutter, fired, and had his pension entitlement withdrawn.
In 2002, Dougal Watt, another high ranking official, a qualified auditor, drew attention to fraud, nepotism, sexual harassment and poor management. He was fired.
A anonymous Frenchman, another qualified auditor, sent an MEP a detailed dossier on fraud, corruption and nepotism, basically backing up the allegations made by Dougal Watt. He was smeared as a nutter.
Dougal Watt took his allegations to Edward Leigh, Tory chair of the UK Parliament Public Accounts Committee, calling for 'a transnational public inquiry into corruption in the EU'. The response of Leigh was to claim: 'There is no authority within the UK with the power to investigate the European Institutions.'
The reply from Leigh exposes the Tory Euro election lie that they seek reform within the EU.
Allegations by Paul van Buitenen of fraud and corruption, brought down the entire Commission. Van Buitenen was forced into hiding after receiving death threats. Following his allegations, the UK Parliament Public Accounts Committee went on a fact finding mission to Europe. They concluded that there was no real will to clean up the EU, and that there was inadequate protection for whistle blowers.
The latest casualty is Marta Andreasen who went to the European Parliament with her claim that the EU accounts are rotten to the core. She was immediately suspended by her boss Commissioner Neil Kinnock, but to date, no action has been taken against her pending disciplinary action.
There is a tradition in the UK of dispatching bumbling useless has-been politicians to the EU as Commissioners. Kinnock is no exception.
Neil Kinnock is an EU Commissioner, his wife is an MEP, their son is employed by the Commission. Kinnock is the Commissioner who immediately suspended Marta Andreasen when she exposed the EU accounts as rotten to the core. Kinnock is the man charged by the Commission with, you've guessed it, cleaning up corruption, fraud and nepotism within the EU!
In theory, Kinnock is an overpaid jumped up civil servant, but he does not hesitate to weigh into politics if it is to his advantage. When Tony Blair was forced by public opinion to announce a referendum on the EU Constitution, Kinnock did not hesitate to give a seres of media interviews to attack this as an affront to democracy, allowing the people to decide. When Eurosceptic Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde rallied 150 MEPs to vote against the Commission, Kinnock made his displeasure clear, declaring Bonde to be his lifetime enemy and that he would see to it that he was punished!
For the current European elections, Paul van Buitenen has twenty Eurosceptic candidates, Europa Transparant, standing for election.
Anyone who has any remaining doubts as to who is running Europe, the Commission or member states, only has to look at the conduct of the European elections currently taking place. Polling took place in the UK on Thursday. Results would normally be announced that night or in the early hours of the following morning. But no, they cannot be announced until Sunday night. Why? Because the Commission has dictated so. The only other country to go to the polls on Thursday, was Holland. The Dutch government announced provisional results Thursday night. BBC reported this Thursday night and the Daily Telegraph Friday, but neither dared report the results. The Dutch government is now being threatened with legal action by the bully-boys in Brussels.
further reading
Belen Balanya et al, Corporate Europe Inc, Pluto Press, 2000 {a later edition is now available}
Brussels Sprouts, Private Eye {an irregular column in Private Eye exposing EU corruption}
Paul van Buitenen, Blowing the Whistle: One man's fight against fraud in the European Commission, Politico's, 2000
Keith Parkins, The cost of an EU superstate, Indymedia UK, 10 June 2004
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293119.html
What's Watt in Europe, Private Eye, 11-24 June 2004
web
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/
http://www.ukip.org
http://www.greenparty.org.uk
http://www.respectcoalition.org
http://www.europatransparant.nl/
 Website: http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/
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