EU’s Ex-Chief Accountant standing as candidate in
June’s Euro Elections pledges to expose
Brussels’ fraud and waste
If elected, Marta Andreasen plans to join the EU’s budgetary control committee and reveal to the British people what really happens to their money.
“Brussels Laid Bare” by Marta Andreasen: Story told in full in her new book published this month by St. Edward’s Press. (Quotes used below are from this book unless otherwise stated.)
As of May 2009 the EU’s internal auditors have refused to sign off on its accounts for the last 14 years and there are no independent auditors. Marta Andreasen, Brussels’ Ex-Chief Accountant, and previously responsible for the whole of the EU’s budget, was the first qualified accountant to fill this position in January 2002. She was to discover a shocking lack of financial controls, especially with regard to computerised systems where numbers in “reports often changed from day to day”. Some information was only on spreadsheets “on which anyone could make changes [and if] manipulated [would] leave no electronic trail” (page 14 and page 48). She describes the EU funds as “an open till waiting to be robbed” where “billions go walkabout.” (Page 127). For example, “the opening balance for the EU accounts for 2001 didn’t match the closing balance for the 2000 accounts. There was a gap of almost 200 million euros. These accounts were actually published in the official journal of the European Union”. “When I asked my staff to explain the discrepancy, I was informed that these were loans given to third parties and then written off.” (Both Page 15). She also learned that senior officials were authorised to hand out huge amounts of tax-payers’ money without any proper records being kept which would not be acceptable in any other context. “It was not just one specific case that concerned me, but the whole notion that the system could operate in this way: that money, not approved in the budget, could be advanced to anyone, be called a loan and then be written off when the recipient failed to return it”. (Page 15).
In ‘Brussels Laid Bare’, Marta tells how she was blocked and intimidated when she tried to initiate reforms in line with her duties. British Commissioner Neil Kinnock played a significant role in Marta’s dismissal in a procedure which was in breach of article six of the EU’s own Convention on Human Rights. All of the Disciplinary board were “Commission officials who had been managing EU funds without proper controls for years.” (Page 116)
Her previous request for a Treasury audit caused “massive unease”. “I saw it as something that any of the big private international accountancy firms could accomplish in a couple of weeks. But I also knew, as they knew, that such an audit might raise questions about the Commission as the guardian of EU funds and about the competence and actions of specific civil servants who had held responsibility for 15 to 20 years”. (Page 49)
The Commission is unelected and has a monopoly on proposing all EU legislation which it does in secret. Its subsequent regulations are automatically binding to all member states.
Marta Andreasen: “It seemed almost unbelievable to me that the judges would find it admissible that the Chief Accountant of the EU Commission should be sacked merely for stating clearly what the Court of Auditors had said every year for the previous 13 years. Indeed, within ten days of the Tribunal’s judgement being made public, the Court of Auditors refused, yet again, to sign off the EU’s accounts, complaining of “fraud, neglect and irregularities.” (Page 122)
If elected, Marta pledges to return to Brussels and sit on the Budgetary Control Committee and “challenge each and every one of the numbers of the EU accounts” and tell the British taxpayers the truth. She ends, “I know where the bodies are buried” and she intends to dig them up.
(Page 128)
“The main reason that I continue my fight is that I don’t want my children … to live in thrall to the EU: a layer of government that, in my view, is not only unnecessary, but lawless, corrupt, mistaken, undemocratic, bureaucratic, over-regulated and, ultimately, unworkable.” (Page 123)
In the ‘Foreword’, Lord Pearson of Rannoch says: “72% of the cost of UK regulations in the last 10 years has been imposed by Brussels for a total of £106.6 billion, or more than £10 billion per annum. When you add in our share of EU spending, higher food costs and our hard cash, our membership may be costing us around 8% of GDP or £120 billion per annum, with no discernible benefit”. (Page IX)
“Europhiles pretend that the European Scrutiny Committees in the Commons and Lords inject an element of democracy into all of this. But those Committees have no power, can look at only a tiny fraction of EU laws, and their suggestions go unheeded in Brussels. The Government has indeed promised that it won’t sign up to a proposed EU law if either Committee is still considering it, but has broken the promise 435 times in the last 6 years. No laws passed in Brussels have ever been overturned by Parliament, because they can’t be; the Treaties make sure of that.” (Page X1)
Notes to Editors:
Marta Andreasen is currently the Treasurer for UKIP. www.ukip.org
In her trial, Marta was accused of breaking two staff regulations; articles 12 and 21. Article 12 states that EU officials should refrain from any action or behaviour which might reflect adversely upon their position. Article 21 is longer, but covers the action employees should take when they receive an order which they consider to be manifestly illegal. In her book, Marta gives a line by line account of how she obeyed both of these regulations in both letter and spirit, in particular when she refused to sign off on accounts which tried to hide millions of missing euros.
Summary note from the Managing Director of the Publishing firm, Mr. Hugh Williams:
“Some may feel that the issues are so complex that, even though the evidence that the EU’s system of accounting is clearly unsatisfactory in the extreme, unless one could see at first hand the reported irregularities being carried out, it is impossible for a layman to draw any reliable conclusions. It may be helpful, therefore, to reproduce a letter published in the Financial Times on 27 November 2006 from Mr. Christopher Dickson, (Executive Counsel, The Accountants' Joint Disciplinary Scheme) who attended part of Marta’s trial.”
Published in the Financial Times, 27 November 2006
‘EU needs a proper accounting system, but it won't happen’
Sir,
With due respect to Ed Balls, the economic secretary to the Treasury, he has completely missed the point ("Britain to 'take lead' on vetting EU accounts", November 20). What is needed is not more "vetting" of European Union accounts (the Court of Auditors has shown itself to be perfectly competent to undertake that task) but rather a proper accounting system with effective controls within the Commission and its various offshoots. This will not happen because the vested interests in maintaining the status quo are too powerful.
When Marta Andreasen was appointed to be the EU's first chief accountant, she found an Augean stable of untraceable payments and myriad bank accounts with no ascertainable controls on signatories. Her brave attempts at cleansing led to her dismissal by a Commission that included, among others, our own much loved Lord Kinnock.
Christopher Dickson,
Executive Counsel, The Accountants' Joint Disciplinary Scheme.
Copyright Christopher Dickson 2006 (See also page 102)
Professional Public Recognition from both Accountants and Fraud Examiners:
In 2003 Accountancy Age awarded Marta with the reader-voted Accountancy Age award as Personality of the Year.
http://www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/features/2040261/awards-2003-hall-fame
This was followed in 2004 by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award for "choosing truth over self".
http://www.acfe.com/Membership/awards.asp
Publisher:
St Edwards Press is a small publishing company owned by Hugh Williams, Chartered Accountant. www.stedwardspress.co.uk