MEPs' great hope for more EU democracy and transparency to be decided by... a secret ballot

Own-goal alert.

When selected as the Socialists' candidate for the European Commission President, Martin Schulz claimed that:

“I want to be the first President of the Commission who is not the result of a backroom deal in a Brussels office."

This is the main argument advanced by supporters of the spitzenkandidaten process (including by the current front-runner, Jean-Claude Juncker) i.e. that having the Commission President nominated by the largest political group within the European Parliament is more transparent and democratic than the previous process whereby EU leaders agreed the Commission President amongst themselves. For the first time, voters would be able to directly determine who would get this crucial post., and be able to hold politicians to account for their choice.

However, when the Parliament itself comes to vote on the appointment, as per its rules of procedure, the vote is held by, wait for it, a secret ballot: 

Rule 105 : Election of the President of the Commission

1. When the European Council proposes a candidate for President of the Commission, the President shall request the candidate to make a statement and present his or her political guidelines to Parliament. The statement shall be followed by a debate.

The European Council shall be invited to take part in the debate.

2. Parliament shall elect the President of the Commission by a majority of its component Members.

The vote shall be taken by secret ballot.

Although this is not a new development - Barroso was confirmed by secret ballot - this time it was supposed to be different. It is hard to stress just how absurd it is for MEPs to decry a "stitch-up" by national leaders and then refuse to allow themselves to be subjected to scrutiny. If the idea is to make the appointment process more transparent and to 'put voters in charge', how can voters hold their MEPs to account when they do not know how they voted? How will - for example - Labour voters know if their MEPs will follow the party line and vote against Juncker should he emerge as the European Council's preferred candidate?

For all the laudable talk about democracy, transparency and accountability, critics will be forgiven for thinking that this is about the European Parliament trying to carve out more power and influence for itself within the EU structure. Yet another reason to drop the spitzenkandidat charade and allow national leaders - who have a much stronger democratic mandate - to make this decision.

The European Parliament - a failed experiment in pan-European democracy?

In a new report published this morning we assess the track record of the European parliament and conclude that it has failed as an institution on a number of fronts. Although many individual MEPs work hard and conscientiously for their constituents, the European Parliament as a whole has failed to gain popular democratic legitimacy. Still, given that the EP now has a lot of power to decide law that impacts on people's every day life - from working hours to browsing the web - there's a lot of reason to vote in the European elections.

Here are the key findings:

• Turnout has fallen despite an increase in MEPs’ powers: While the use of ‘co-decision’, under which MEPs have equal status with national ministers in passing EU legislation, has more than doubled during the last two decades – from 27% to 62% – turnout in European elections has fallen from 57% to 43%. Yes, yes, correlation not causation (as the old twitter cliché goes) but point is: if the EP was effective in closing the democratic deficit, we would see exactly the opposite trend. 

• There is no correlation between voter turnout and knowledge of the European Parliament or interest in EU affairs: A common explanation for low turnout in European elections is a lack of public knowledge of EU politics and the EU institutions yet this is not borne out by our research. For example, in Romania 81% and Slovakia 79% of people say they are aware of the European Parliament but only 28% and 20% turned out to vote in 2009.

Likewise, low turnout cannot be explained by a lack of interest - in the Netherlands, 61% say they were interested in European affairs – the highest in the EU – yet the turnout of voters at 36% is one of the lowest.

• The main party groups in the European Parliament agree with each other three quarters of the time: It probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who watched any of the 'debates' between Martin Schulz and Jean-Claude Juncker that, despite representing national parties of different political traditions, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and centre-left Socialist and Democrat (S&D) party families voted the same way 74% of the time in the 2009-14 parliament. Meanwhile, the average majority in co-decision votes in the 2009-14 parliamentary term is over 75% – the highest it has ever been. In effect, this denies the voters the very same choice the EP is meant to boost. 

• In 2012, the European Parliament spent €85 million on fostering a common European political identity through the party groups in the European Parliament and their affiliated pan-European parties and political foundations outside the parliament. This is only part of a budget that has been spiralling out of control - up from €1.4bn in 2008 to around €1.75bn in 2014.
  
  
  

So those are some of the key problems - what about the solutions? While there is no quick easy fix to what is a complex and multi-faceted problem, the single most effective remedy would be to return democratic accountability closer to voters by boosting the role of national parliaments in the EU decision making process and not repeating the mistake of giving more powers to the European Parliament.

This would involve national parliaments being able to group together to block proposed EU laws and amend or repeal existing rules (see here for more details on this). In parallel, the European Parliament should be stripped of its right to increase the EU budget as it is national parliaments that are responsible for raising the revenue. In addition, MEPs should not be able to veto EU trade agreements agreed by national parliaments.

Meanwhile, the €85 million spent on fostering a common European political identity through the party families in the parliament and their affiliated pan-European political parties and foundations should be cut. The 2009 reforms to MEPs’ allowances should be completed by requiring all allowances, such as the general expenditure allowance (worth €51,588 a year) which is vulnerable to misuse, to be conditional on the production of receipts.

MEPs miss an opportunity to do their job

Last week, the European Parliament had the opportunity of doing what most other elected bodies in the free world consider a core task: making sure taxpayers' money is spent in a transparent, accountable and regular way.

MEPs were asked to provide discharge to the 2012 EU budget, in which according to the European Court of Auditors, the rate of error rate had increased to 4.8% compared with 3.9% in 2011 and affected every area of EU spending. The COA's own benchmark for acceptable levels of error is 2%. Of the total €138.6bn spent by the EU in 2012, €6.7bn was affected by errors.

However, MEPs voted to approve the discharge report, drafted by German CDU MEP Markus Pieper, with 488 votes in favour, 121 against and 10 abstentions - effectively signing off the budget.

The report admits that: 

"For the 19th time in succession, the Court of Auditors was unable to grant a positive statement of assurance regarding the legality and regularity of the payments underlying the accounts". 

(Yes, we know the Court of Auditors signed off the Commission's own accounts, so no need for any Commission officials reading this to make that well-worn point). The MEPs provided various justifications for nodding through the budget despite the errors, including:

"a distinction must be drawn between errors and fraud, and [the EP] considers that, in the vast majority of cases, errors stem from administrative mistakes, many of which are linked to the complexity of Union and national rules, which can be corrected".

They have a point. Errors and fraud are not the same thing - though the line can be awfully blurred. However, we doubt the average taxpayer would be entirely content with that explanation. The bottom line is that the cash should not have been paid out. As we've argued before, the high level of error is primarily due to the nature of the EU budget itself - it's size, complexity, confused objectives etc - and this will persist until it's fundamentally reformed.

What's interesting about the MEPs' behaviour is that they are a lot less forgiving when it comes to the spending by European Council/Council of Ministers - i.e. the member states.The EP decided to postpone the approval of the Council's accounts "because of its lack of cooperation".

EU Anti-Fraud Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta reacted to the EP's decision by saying that "The EU budget is the one of the most transparent and accounted for public budgets in the world", while arguing that "For the past 5 years, the overall error rate has been consistently below 5%. In other words, over 95% of all EU spending is in line with the rules."

The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK- three of the biggest net contributors to the EU budget collectively responsible for 20% of the funding - take a radically different approach. They again voted against discharge in the Council of Ministers, regretting that

"the overall error rate in recent years has increased to 4.8 %, being significantly above the acceptable threshold of 2 %."

Surprisingly, Labour and Lib Dem MEP, but also Dutch VVD MEP Hans Van Baalen voted against the position taken by their member states in the Council.

Not inspiring confidence.

9%, 43%, 50%, 60%, 84%: How many domestic laws are linked to EU law? The case of Sweden

It's up there with the origins of the universe as one of the great existential questions of our time (well...): how many national laws stem from Brussels?

European Commissioner Viviane Reding - who does what she can to turn people against the EU - recently told a "Debating Europe" event in Sweden (H/T @AllieRenison):

Did you know that 80% of Swedish laws are not Swedish laws? They are European laws that have been translated into Swedish legislation.

In addition to the comment being ridiculous (it was in reply to a question about the EU costing too much)  she seems to have plucked this number out of thin air. Incidentally, it would top Nigel Farage's much-criticised claim that 75% of all UK laws are made in Brussels. Another example of Better Off Outers and Europhiles agreeing.

As regular readers will know, the Open Europe team has gone to hell and back trying to answer this question, and our conclusion is that it's virtually impossible to determine with any degree of certainty what the share of EU-derived laws is. It all depends on what you count, how you define an EU-derived law and what the counter-factual is.

It most certainly is higher than 9% as some claim. Counting UK Statutory Instruments, which is what the study from which this number is drawn from did, isn't that meaningful as there's no 1-1 correlation between that and EU law. It also doesn't include EU Regulations which, unlike Directives, are directly applicable, giving no rise to separate domestic legislation.

The 84% figure that is often cited originates from an answer to a German parliamentary question, comparing the number of new federal laws and new EU laws in one year. However, this is also too simplistic. For example, counting only federal laws in a federal system isn't particularly meaningful. Germany has 16 Länder that churn out laws as well.

Now, a new Swedish study has thrown in another number to debate. The Riksdag and Departement - the Swedish Parliament's in-house magazine - has reviewed 1,300 Swedish legislative proposals, dating back to 2005. It found that the share of legislative proposals in 2012 originating in the EU stands at 43% - a dramatic increase compared to 2010 when the share was 28%. Of the 104 laws that so far have been proposed by the Riksdag this year, about a third originate in the EU.

This is a quick and dirty study in many ways - it measures only the so-called flow of EU legislation, not its stock. And the flow clearly is subject to a lot of variation. Its proposals and not laws passed. And, as with the German study, it doesn't look at local rules. Local government is important in the Swedish system, with Councils (or municipalities) having plenty of decision-making power. So any serious "EU law count" would have to look at this dimension as well.

But, we're not done yet. A 2010 report by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions - who should know a thing or two about local decision-making - does address this very question. It says this:

The report shows that, on average, the EU affects 60 percent of items on municipal council agendas. The number is slightly lower for county councils and regions, where the EU influences around 50 percent of agenda items. 

Given that these are local decisions, it does sound high to us, but remember the report doesn't count laws per se, but issues considered by the local government in Sweden (public procurement considerations for example will always be influenced by EU law, despite it not necessarily giving rise to new local rules).

A few conclusions:

• Viviane Reding really must be on the UKIP payroll 
• It remains incredibly difficult to nail down exactly how many laws originate in the EU
• The share of EU laws is best measured in terms of domestic legislation "influenced by" or "linked to" EU decisions, ideally in combination with the measurable impact of these laws (our preferred way) to get a sense of the relative impact
• Any EU law count must also look at the local or regional level.
• Still, a h*** of a lot of domestic laws stem from the EU 

"Why EU mandarins refuse to learn"

Has anything changed since the 15th century?

Die Welt’s Foreign Affairs Editor Clemens Wergin today has a blistering op-ed on the current state of affairs in Europe, entitled “Why EU mandarins refuse to learn”. Here are the key parts:

“The disastrous decisions regarding the future of Europe have been completely without consequences. Despite all the mistakes made the system appears to be incapable of adapting. The tanker remains on the wrong course.”

“It belongs to the biggest disappointments for convinced democrats that up until now, neither on the European level or on that of the nation states, there are no noteworthy efforts to clarify the causes of the euro crisis… The Bundestag has also not covered itself in glory. There has been no cross-examination of Hans Eichel and Gerhard Schröder why they agreed to let Greece join the euro despite the fact that already then there was a strong suspicion that the Greek figures were problematic.”

"Democracy is adaptive and able to correct itself. However this is out of the question in the worst crisis to hit Europe after the war. Here, the euroscepticism of many of the continent’s citizens is justified. They see that in this crisis that this Europe is not created on transparency, enlightenment and accountability. This creates the impression that they are dealing with a conspiracy of the elite, conspiracy against common sense."

“EU elites are afraid of washing their dirty laundry for fear it will portray the European project in a bad light… It is part of the pride and ethos of a democratic polity to clarify failures and to draw consequences.”

“With the exception of the changes to the eurozone’s regulatory framework forced through by the Germans there have been no intentions of rethinking the fundamental assumptions of the EU… One gets the justifiable impression that nothing can divert EU mandarins from their current path and their pre-conceived opinions. The euro has not worked? Ok, let's try an even higher dose of community building… In Brussels they mourn over bad poll numbers and believe that this is only down to national populists who have wrongly explained Europe.” 

"With Portugal, Spain and Greece there was once the quiet hope that good European governance would be diffused via a kind of osmosis process from the EU headquarters in Brussels into the periphery. That has worked only in part. In some respects, the abundant money from the EU’s structural funds has had the opposite effect to that which was intended. They have strengthened clientelistic structures and made people there believe their system somehow works. Ultimately, politicians always had enough money via Brussels assistance to distribute to cronies and voters. As long as money was available, many people profited from this system. Then along came the crisis which showed that it just does not work and carries with it significant competitive disadvantages.” 

"At present, the EU is obviously not an adaptive system. Nothing is solved, no one is held accountable. Responsibility for consequential mistakes is lost somewhere between the many capital cities and the corridors of Brussels. As long as this does not change, one should not be surprised by the bad reputation that this European undertaking enjoys among citizens."

 Taking no prisoners. For German speakers, it's worth reading the entire piece. 

Open Europe Berlin: one to watch!

This is exciting stuff. As we've argued repeatedly, the future of Europe will largely be decided in Germany, as that country goes through a very dynamic, internal debate.

Which is why Wednesday's  launch of Open Europe Berlin gGmbH, Open Europe’s new independent partner organisation, was so incredibly timely. 220+ journalists, policy-makers, business leaders, academics, diplomats and others crowded at a packed Hotel de Rome in Berlin, to listen to OEB Director Prof. Dr. Michael Wohlgemuth and the keynote speaker Otmar Issing, former chief economist at the ECB.

The message from the podium no doubt struck a chord: the future of Europe isn't alternativlos – without alternatives to ever more centralisation. In his welcome address, OE Berlin Director, Prof. Dr. Michael Wohlgemuth argued that:

“We stand for a Europe governed by the rule of law and a Europe of citizens, not of bureaucrats… We are Europe-friendly but we place emphasis on measures that made Europe free & prosperous, not central planning… the current crisis measures will lead to institutional sclerosis & harmonised lack of responsibility, a clear case of ‘moral hazard’… Instead we stand for a liberal & competitive Europe; a democratically controllable decentralised arrangement within a clear rules based system.” 

OE Berlin Director Prof. Dr. Wohlgemuth delivering his opening remarks

In a keynote address entitled “More Europe – what kind of Europe?”, the former ECB Chief Economist Otmar Issing noted that “A think tank contributing fresh thinking on Europe is sorely needed and deserves support.”

Otmar Issing and event moderator Karen Horn

In his speech, Issing argued that:

“Placing too much value on a currency, whether it is the D-Mark or the Euro is not a good idea. It cannot be maintained at any cost...I welcome solidarity when it is about helping the weak get back on their feet. However, the fiscal union is a false interpretation of solidarity…The fiscal union is a clear case of wrong incentives. I do not believe that ‘more Europe’, a political union, is an alternative to the present state of affairs.” 

Instead, he said that failures within the euro were structural and were not caused by ‘financial speculation’, and that member states had to deal with their own problems rather than trying to move them to the European level. Issing also criticised the EU Commission’s “deeply absurd” rush towards establishing a banking union. He added that the proposed ‘Chinese wall’ between supervision and monetary policy at the ECB was “illusionary”.

The full video of the launch event is available here (auf Deutsch).

The crowd mingles at the Hotel de Rome

For German media coverage of the launch, see here.

Open Europe London Director Mats Persson outside OE Berlin office on Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin's Mitte district

Et tu, technocrat

According to the latest news from Italy, it looks like not even the country's technocrats are immune from scandals. Carlo Malinconico (whose surname means 'melancholic' in Italian, see picture), an EU Law Professor serving as Undersecretary to the Presidency in Mario Monti's cabinet, has resigned this morning following allegations that he had his holidays paid for by a dodgy Italian builder.

According to wiretaps analysed by Italian prosecutors, between 2007 and 2008 Malinconico spent a couple of weekends at the five-star luxurious Hotel Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole (part of Italy's glamorous Argentario peninsula in Tuscany) without paying a single cent. The roughly €20,000 bill was, it turned out, footed by Francesco De Vito Piscicelli, an Italian builder who, along with other Italian entrepreneurs, is involved in a scandal over several tenders illegally obtained at the time of the latest G8 summit held in Italy in 2009.

Malinconico decided to resign, but it is still unclear whether a specific investigation will be launched over his relationship with Piscicelli & co. He maintains that, at the time, he wanted to pay the entire bill and that, when he realised that he would not be allowed to do so, he was so annoyed that he immediately cancelled all future reservations at Hotel Il Pellicano. Malinconico also says that he had no clue about who had paid for his holidays and that he is now ready to pay his fair share, if need be (maybe a bit late now).

Given that Monti's technocratic government was put in place precisely to move away from the dysfunctional politics that has haunted Italy over recent years, this episode, reminiscent of the Berlusconi years, is concerning. On the positive side, at least the mis-step is being forcefully dealt with, showing that perhaps lessons are being learnt...

Et tu, technocrat - as the Romans might have put it.

The Karlsruhe Factor, part III

Given its scope in determining the application of Germany's Constitution (Basic Law), the country's Karlsruhe-based Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has emerged as a vital, if low-key, player in the eurozone crisis. We have frequently covered its rulings in the past.

The Court has hit the headlines in Germany again as it is considering two appeals this week brought forward by German opposition politicians against the government's handling of the eurozone crisis; the first involves the participation of the Bundestag in decisions concerning the deployment of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), while the second involves a complaint made by the Green party over the perceived lack of information made available to MPs by the government regarding the European Stability Mechanism - the eurozone's permanent bailout fund due to become operational in mid-2013.

Lets recap quickly: A so-called 'special committee' comprising nine MPs (meaning only five would be needed for a majority) was established last month in order to confidentially approve urgent and market-sensitive actions by the EFSF, possibly involving transactions running into billions of euros. This was a direct consequence of the Court's earlier ruling that for the bailouts to be constitutional, the Bundestag must be involved in the decision making process. The MPs were to be selected from the 41 MPs sitting on the Bundestag’s Budgetary Committee, out of a grand total of 620 MPs.

Many were less than impressed by what they saw as an infringement of their rights as parliamentary representatives, and two SDP MPs, Peter Danckert and Sven Schulz, felt strongly enough to take the matter to the Constitutional Court, which displayed its not-inconsiderable powers by suspending the 'special committee' only days after it had been announced pending an investigation into its legality.

At yesterday's hearing into the issue, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble - who was forced to be there in person (quite rare) - defended the committee, arguing that:

"When markets react, they react excessively. Then there is panic. Without the observance of confidentiality, the EFSF rescue fund would, in certain areas, be incapacitated. Investors can hardly understand the intricate and complex processes of the European Union. We need an instrument capable of action whose decision making process can reasonably convince market participants."

Peter Altmaier, Chief Whip of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag, added that if the EFSF were to buy bonds from struggling member states on the secondary market, and these interventions were to become known at the wrong time, "then we would burn taxpayers' money".

However the Court's judges were reportedly not entirely convinced, with President Andreas Voßkuhle warning that concentrating decision making powers in the hands of the 'special committee' could strip other MPs of their responsibility in this area, and that he had "certain doubts" over whether this could be right. Voßkuhle delivered this highly memorable quote:

"The constitutional rules of the game need to be maintained even in difficult times. The demand that 'necessity knows no law' has historically brought good fortune to man only in the short term, if at all."

The Court now has some time to consider the case before delivering its final verdict - most likely to arrive in January. For all the power vested in the Court, and even in light of the concerns raised by the judges yesterday, it would nonetheless be unprecedented if it were to completely overrule the decision of a democratically elected government.

The Cout's ruling is far from academic; as Dietmar Hipp writes in Der Spiegel:

Behind the scenes, much more is at stake: the loss of power of the Constitutional Court itself. The government and the court are locked in one of their biggest power struggles to date. One judge at the court described it as a "latent constitutional crisis." The government, he said, was trying to free itself of the restraints imposed on it by the constitution, and by the court.

Hipp writes that efforts are already underway in Berlin to change the constitution so as to deprive the judges of their jurisdiction in questions of European integration. This is significant because Germany's post-war political system was specifically designed to prevent the centralisation of power, with significant systemic circuit breakers such as the Constitutional Court put in place to counteract such a scenario. As a result important decisions in Germany have traditionally been reached slowly and by consensus, an approach that is not well suited to the sort of crisis management currently demanded by markets, the media and other politicians. As Voßkuhle has noted, this has placed the Court in a difficult position:

On the one hand, the Court had been credited for ensuring that European unity remained on a secure legal and democratic footing. But on the other hand, it is seen by some as an obstacle in overcoming the current crisis.

As we have argued repeatedly throughout the crisis, in spite of its international dimensions, national democracy is still king, and ultimately this how the fate of the euro will be determined. In Germany the ongoing struggle between the government, the parliament and the judiciary over how exactly democracy is to be exercised is likely to intensify.

In fact, this has become one of the most interesting faultlines of the crisis, one which does not only impact on politics and constitutional affairs in Germany, but the world economy at large.

Message to the Commission: Denial won't reduce waste

You remember the non-existing Hungarian dog fitness centre which received €400,000 in EU subsidies? We highlighted the project at the top of our list of 50 examples of EU waste.

Well, from the Hungarian press we now learn that the Hungarian Development Agency - the national body responsible for the distribution of the EU's regional development funds - has asked the company Gyrotech Ltd (which, bizarrely enough is an IT company) to pay back the money it received in 2007 for the project to the European Regional Development Fund. The original grant was aimed at "improving the lifestyle and living standard of dogs."

Hungarian economic magazine HVG credits Open Europe for bringing the case to the attention of the international press.

If the money will in fact be paid back, this is good news and shows that it’s possible to fight EU waste. As a result of efforts to shed some light on these funds (by Open Europe and others), EU waste was detected and the money which was misused is now being reclaimed. Everyone happy?

Not the European Commission, it appears, which didn't quite seem to appreciate Open Europe's efforts to ensure that the EU budget constitutes good value for taxpayers' money and contributes to growth and jobs in Europe.

Note the differing responses:

The Hungarian National Development Agency – which admittedly should have been more prudent when giving grants to the project in the first place - investigated what went wrong and claimed back the money.

The European Commission:

“We don’t consider this to be credible research”. Our list, with the dog fitness centre at the top, was apparently “based on a loose collection of unverified secondary sources”, according to the Commission.

And, “It is regrettable that Open Europe did not even approach the commission to verify any of their so-called facts…it is very easy to pull out a few of the less orthodox projects from thousands funded by the EU and present them in a onedimensional manner for ridicule.”

The Commission does indeed look pretty ridiculous when it makes statements like this, and it turns out that the number one item on the list, the dog fitness centre in question, was a clear case of undisputable EU waste and that the project is now forced to refund the cash.

It’s not that hard to verify actually. The first-hand source (the Hungarian Regional Development Agency), detailing the grant, is right there in the footnotes of our report – all you have to do is to click on the link and voila!

The same goes for almost all the other projects we’ve highlighted, apart from a handful, such as the case of the two fishermen who received a €500,000 grant from the EU and the Swedish government to scrap their boat under a scheme to reduce over-fishing. It then used the grant to buy a new boat, under a separate set of rules, and carried on with their fishing business. In this case, the fishermen themselves were widely documented to have admitted that this was exactly what had happened.

Instead of going on its counterproductive rant, the Commission should thank anyone who tries to identify waste and who proposes reforms to stamp it out.

We’re not holding our breathes though.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times and the Bureau of Investigative Journalists have made European taxpayers and transparency campaigners a great service this weak by shedding some additional, and much needed light, on the EU's structural funds. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for example.

Some of the findings have included:

• Only 10% of the earmarked funds for 2007-2013 have actually been paid out to date, due to difficulties in many member states to find money for co-financing projects at a time of austerity in Europe (showing how poorly equipped the structural funds are to respond to changing economic circumstances in Europe, in turn undermining their ability to foster "convergence")
  

• €12mn of EU funds have been spent on a port which lays idle in Gran Canaria.

• More than €3mn of public funds – including an estimated €1.5m from EU structural funds – have been allocated to tobacco companies in Europe. The funds have gone to help equip cigarette factories and to fund training projects. Under the Framework Convention this is in breach of WHO guidelines on tobacco control. Paradoxically, the EU also spends more than €16mn a year on antismoking campaigns.

• Some big beneficiaries of the structural funds include McDonald's, which received funds to train staff in an affluent region of Sweden, in addition to IBM, Coca-Cola, and Japan Tobacco International. This is despite the fact that the funds are specifically meant to help small and medium sized companies, particularly in poorer regions.

• Structural funds have been allocated to companies relocating factories from west to east Europe, despite this contravening EU rules.

The Commission has resorted to its trade mark 'nothing-to-see-here' and 'it’s-all-only-a-misunderstanding' response. Indeed, denial remains the most predictable of the Commission's responses.

To be fair, the Commission has at least one sensible proposal for improving the targetting of the structural funds - linking more of the funds to actual performance and achieved targets (as outlined by Commissioner Hahn).

More stuff like this and fewer defensive rants, would serve to improve both the effectiveness of the funds as well as the image of the Commission itself.