Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money may be lost by EU fiddling

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Senior peers estimated billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is lost in fiddles every year rather than the millions shown in EU audits.



And many European governments – who administer 80 per cent of EU spending – are covering up the colossal level of corruption, they claimed.



The scathing verdict on the European Commission’s financial controls was delivered in a report from the Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection EU sub-committee.



It concluded the £350million figure for fraud highlighted in the commission’s most recent audit gave “only a glimpse” of the reality.



The real annual cost to the EU budget from fraud was likely to be around £4.3billion, the report claimed. It also revealed Treasury figures showed £1billion a year was lost through VAT fiddles linked to spending on EU projects.



A total of £66million a year was ripped off from EU agricultural programmes in the UK while a further £166million was stolen from “cohesion policy” programmes designed to help the deprived. Sub-committee chairman and Tory peer Lord Bowness said: “Money is tight for everyone, right across the European Union.



“It is extremely worrying so much money is disappearing from the EU’s budget without anyone having a handle on where and why it is happening and who is responsible.”

The UK may be the first Government to make a department responsible for preventing EU fraud

It is extremely worrying so much money is disappearing from the EU’s budget without anyone having a handle on where and why it is happening and who is responsible. Tory peer Lord Bowness