Dispatches

Riding Europe's Gravy Train (2010x30)

: 15, 2010

On the same day the British public heard details of the unprecedented cuts in government spending that will affect almost everyone in the country, taxpayers also learnt they'd have to pay extra hundreds of millions of pounds a year to Brussels, as MEPs voted in favour of an increase in their budget. Calling the proposed 5.9% increase 'completely irresponsible and unacceptable', David Cameron has just managed to get the EU to limit the budget rise to 2.9%. Dispatches reveals that, despite the worldwide credit crunch, it's still possible to get rich out of Europe. The programme details the exceptionally generous package of salary, pension and expenses that MEPs receive and how some have abused the rules to pocket as much cash as possible. While Westminster has tightened up on the expenses system, Brussels still hands out some cash allowances without the need for receipts. The programme also looks at the system of agricultural payments, which are supposed to help those British farmers struggling to earn a livelihood and continue producing food. Dispatches shows how millions of pounds in grants have ended up going to some of the best known - and richest - landowners in the country. Dispatches also examines how money meant to help deprived areas has actually been spent. In one case the programme discovers that hundreds of UK workers are being laid off and their jobs moved to Poland, funded in part by a multi-million-pound European grant. In another case the programme investigates allegations of fraud when a man with a criminal conviction for dishonesty ended up running a project given hundreds of thousands of pounds of EU money.