Auditors refuse to give EU accounts a clean bill of health for 19th year in a row as rate of unexplained spending rises 23%... with UK liable for £800m

European Union spent nearly £6billion in 'error' last year



Rural spending was the worst area with £1billion wasted

British taxpayers will be liable for more than £800million



British taxpayers will have to pay more than £800million after the European Union spent nearly £6billion in ‘error’ last year.

Auditors yesterday refused to sign off the EU accounts for the 19th year in succession as they revealed that the spending errors are 23 per cent up on the year before.

While countries across Europe were forced to rein in spending, EU bosses paid out £5.7billion to ineligible projects, of which Britain’s share is £832million.

Questionable: The annual report reveals the amount of unexplained spending has risen and the books have not been given a clean bill of health for the 19th year in a row

The rate of errors increased from 3.9 per cent to 4.8 per cent of spending, a rise of nearly a quarter.

The European Court of Auditors found that supervision and control of Brussels spending worth another £117billion was only ‘partially effective’.

The fraud affects all areas of EU spending, the watchdog said . Rural spending was the worst area, with 7.9 per cent of the €15 billion (£12.6billion) rural development expenditure made in error.

This means about £1billion was wrongly paid out by beaurocrats.

6.8 percent of the €40.7 billion (£34.3billion) spent on regional policy, energy and transport was also spent in error. That mistake cost more than £2 billion.

Vitor Caldeira, the president of the ECA, warned that a backlog of bills ‘will put added pressure on EU cash flows and may increase the risk of error over the next few years’.

Attack: David Cameron also attacked the refusal of the European Commission to make cuts to its bloated bureaucracy at a time when countries are slashing the cost of governments at home

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: ‘It is about time the peoples of Europe were able to get this EU albatross off their backs, or at least out of their pockets.’

Pawel Swidlicki, from the Open Europe think-tank, said the auditor’s report is proof that the EU’s budgeting procedures are ‘fundamentally flawed’.

'RECOVERY TO CONTINUE'

The European Commission is forecasting the recovery across the 28-countries will continue into the second half of the year, albeit at a slowpace.

The executive arm of the European Union said it expects the region's economy to grow by 0.5 per cent over the second half of the year and be flat for the whole year.

In its previous forecast in May, it predicted a 0.1 percent annual decline.

It also expects the 17-country Eurozone to continue its recovery from recession in quarterly terms.

However, over 2013 as a whole, the Eurozone is still expected to have contracted 0.4 per cent.

In 2014 though, it is penciling in 1.1 percent growth.

The Eurozone's unemployment is expected to remain at its record-high of 12.2 per cent this year and next.

Last year, the European Court of Auditors said the budget was riddled with fraud and error – and that the situation was getting worse.



Tory critics said the finding strengthened the case for going beyond a freeze and cutting the EU’s vast budget.

David Cameron also attacked the refusal of the European Commission to make cuts to its bloated bureaucracy at a time when countries are slashing the cost of governments at home.

Philip Bradbourn MEP, Conservative spokesman on Budgetary control, told The Telegraph: 'Another year, another story of lax monitoring and shambolic control.



'I understand full well that much of the misspending occurs when member states fail to exercise proper supervision of spending within their borders, but the fact is that the EU must accept ultimate responsibility for what happens to the money it dishes out.



'Every year we are told the Commission is serious about tackling the problem. Every year it gets still worse. It is shameful to the EU's integrity and unacceptable to its taxpayers.



'If you found misappropriation and mis-spending on this scale in a commercial business - or in a properly-accountable public administration - there would be sackings all round. In Brussels, it's "Carry on Squandering".'