Some breaking news to add to my post of yesterday about MEPs’ allowances and excesses, sorry expenses. The wall of silence surrounding the confidential internal audit report into employment of assistants is breaking down. Paul van Buitenen, the whistleblower who brought down the Commission of Jacques Santer in 1999, is responsible. Now a Green MEP, he read the report and has just published a summary of it.

Having said that, Jens-Peter Bonde, a veteran eurosceptic from Denmark, is now claiming that there is a second, even more top-secret report. That one contains names and has not been read by any MEPs or sent over to Olaf, the anti-fraud agency, he says.

Here are some brief highlights. Remember the report examined just 167 of more than 4,000 payments between 2004 and 2006 and mentions no names. Given the extent of the irregularities and there is 135m euros - around 15,500 per member per month, at stake, it seems like the tip of the iceberg.

To avoid administrative most MEPs channel the money through “service providers” who handle the paperwork. Some of them seem to have little direct expertise in this. According to van Buitenen, in one case the provider involved was a child care company, in another a timber trader. In two cases money was paid to service providers even though the MEP had no staff.

In three cases MEPs paid money to their own bank accounts. Other companies used appeared to be fictitious. There was widespread paying of bonuses to assistants, often adding up the amount of allowance unspent at the end of the year. One case of a former member who paid a company he controlled has been referred to the anti-fraud authorities but if anyone is to get in trouble over this it could be van Buitenen, for breaching parliamentary procedure by revealing details of the report.

March 5, 2008 3:32pm in EU | Comment