Upside down

Private Eye highlights one of the EU's many contradictions:

Under the rules of the EU's grandly named 3rd Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Directive (directive 2005/60/EC), the UK's Financial Services Authority is now obliged to examine the personal details of those connected to religious and charitable organisations on the pretext that they may be plotting terrorist activities, and has sent a demand for the information, warning that "non-compliance of regulatory obligations" would be "serious".

Meanwhile, EU bosses have offered €11bn in aid to the Bulgarian government - despite widespread reports of corruption and money laundering in the country, and despite Bulgaria's failure to identify the source of crime when it joined the EU last year.

Criminal gangs are now so rife that the Bulgarian MP Atanas Atanasov, a former counter-intelligence chief, has commentedL "Other countries have the mafia. In Bulgaria, the mafia has the country."