Not much Eurocop

A little noticed event took place in Brussels last month when the European Union Court of Auditors awarded the president of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering its annual Gold Medal, citing “the cooperation between the two institutions in safeguarding the interests of the European taxpayers.” Now the diligent observer of EU financial controls might have wondered about this, writes David Haworth from Brussels. After all, the Court – the EU’s key accounting watchdog - is supposed to be the acme of objectivity, so why is it handing out a mini-me Oscar to the head of a sister organisation?

The answer has nothing to do, surely, with the fact that in January the European Parliament (EP) released a €55 million down payment totalling €79 million for the construction of the Court of Auditors’ new headquarters on the outskirts of Luxembourg City. This new structure, incidentally, will “permit the promotion of an image of sobriety appropriate for a supreme audit institution” – something MEPs should note, given that the Parliament has been accused of expenses and travel fiddles, to say nothing of some members’ alleged personal enrichment from monies supposed to be paid to their assistants.