This accounting trick was repeatedly mentioned in last year\u2019s audits, and this year the\u00a0Parliament\u2019s administration\u00a0urged organizations in several meetings \u201cto discontinue the practice,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere could have been an attempt to fraudulently use public money,\u201d said Louis Drouneau, founder of the European Democracy Consulting, an organization that tracks political party donations and expenditure.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd since there is so little transparency regarding the expenses of European parties \u2026 this decreases the ability of civil society and the press to keep a watchful eye on party expenses,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is noticeably different from the level of transparency enacted in many member states.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAny suspicion\u00a0of\u00a0illegal activity, fraud or corruption must be reported\u201d to the anti-fraud office or the European prosecutor, the Parliament said in a statement. \u00a0It could not confirm how many cases were referred to these authorities\u00a0over\u00a02024 misspending.<\/p>\n
Of the \u20ac1.5 million, only \u20ac130,453 is properly accounted for in the Parliament\u2019s report, with the reasons given for the misspending and those responsible: the Patriots, the Green European Foundation, the Institute of European Democrats and the European Liberal Forum. No specific details are given for the rest of the money as the parties and foundations in question chose to repay the funds rather than contest the findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cTransparency is an essential principle in the management of taxpayers\u2019 money,\u201d said Shari Hinds, senior policy officer for EU political integrity at Transparency International. \u201cIn practice, however, the complexity of financial rules and procedures can make it challenging to fully reconstruct how certain decisions are implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This accounting trick was repeatedly mentioned in last year\u2019s audits, and this year the\u00a0Parliament\u2019s administration\u00a0urged organizations in several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[41010,7156,1194,2575,6906,33,2000,66406,9898,299,5187,225661,474,33189,349,46027,1199,11587],"class_list":{"0":"post-939260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-accountability","9":"tag-breaches","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-corruption","12":"tag-democratic-party","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-eu-election","16":"tag-eu-funding","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-european","19":"tag-european-parliament-election-2024","20":"tag-finance","21":"tag-financial-crime-fraud","22":"tag-fraud","23":"tag-public-procurement","24":"tag-services","25":"tag-transparency"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116521882574117195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}