EU's internal auditors refuse to sign off accounts for 22nd year running

The EU Court of Auditors have refused to sign off the EU's accounts for the 22nd year in a row as levels of error and fraud reach new highs.

Their 320 page report highlights serious fraud and errors amounting to 3.8% of the EU's total budget. As much as 42% of spending under the ERDF, CF, ESF and OP programmes was affected by material errors. Projects in Azerbaijan and Mozambique - neither of which are in Europe, let alone the EU - were highlighted as examples of spending where there was no evidence the projects that were being funded even existed. They also highlight the EU's propensity for measuring the success of projects by the amount of money they put into them rather than what the projects achieve.

The amount of error and fraud comes to about £4.8bn. That's the size of the entire Child Trust Fund or the English NHS maintenance and repair budget before George Osborne slashed it this year.