From today’s Open Europe news summary:
Dutch daily Trouw has seen leaked European Commission and Court of Auditors documents it believes shows that “the Czech Republic is committing large scale fraud with EU subsidies”, while “the European Court of Auditors has concluded in May that the Czech authorities have been lying to Brussels in a systemic way”. Trouw Elsevier
Common EU subsidies have created a “tragedy of the commons”, whereby all EU members are encouraged to plunder the commonly owned resource (in this case “subsidies”). Charges of fraudulently trying to increase one’s plunder simply ignore the power of economic law. The subsidies are there for the taking and, I would suspect, national governments encourage their bureaucrats to find creative ways to get more plunder. “Lying to Brussels in a systemic way” has been a common occurrence for years. For example, Greece was admitted to the EU after it falsely claimed its budget deficits met EU rules. Patrick Barron
