By all means, let's give them some more money

Same old, same old. The Court of Auditors has once again refused to sign off the EU Budget for 2009. Are there any improvements? Apparently yes but some things have become worse:

Are there any improvements compared to previous Annual Reports? Yes, as Mr Vítor Caldeira, President of the European Court of Auditors, says “the estimate for the most likely error in Cohesion spending was significantly lower than in previous years; and, for the budget as a whole, the Court's estimate of error has fallen over recent years”. This reduction outweighed, in its significance and effect on the overall level of regularity, an increase in the estimated error rate in Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Here is the Report in full. On pages 11 and 12 you will find the following paragraphs:

IX. In the Court’s opinion, ‘Revenue’, commitments for all policy groups and payments underlying the accounts for the policy groups ‘Economic and financial affairs’ and ‘Administrative and other expenditure’ for the year ended 31 December 2009 in all material respects are legal and regular.

X. In the Court’s opinion, payments underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2009 for the policy groups ‘Agriculture and natural resources’, ‘Cohesion’, ‘Research, energy and transport’, ‘External Aid, development and enlargement’ and ‘Education and Citizenship’ are materially affected by error. The supervisory and control systems are partially effective in preventing or detecting and correcting the reimbursement of overstated or ineligible costs.

By all means, let us give them some more money. And we shall.