The fact that the Trust is helping with EU projects has raised serious questions over BBC impartiali

Its little-known international development arm has picked up £15.5million in EU grants since 2007, cash that boosts BBC’s global brand and helps employ hundreds of staff in London and overseas.

The money has been handed to the BBC World Service Trust, a charity set up to run the corporation’s massive overseas aid operation.

BBC-backed projects funded by the grants include a £2.3million EU handout to “assist the digital switchover in Serbia” last year.

One particularly obscure project was “unblocking the cocoa value chain in Eastern Sierra Leone”.

The European Commission said: “Through this programme we plan to reach 14,000 farmers and potential farmers increasing their knowledge on cocoa farming and the cocoa sector.”

The charity is described in job adverts as the corporation’s “international development agency” .