Travel expenses scandal shows Eurocrat arrogance

JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER and his fellow unelected Eurocrats have nothing but disdain for the ordinary citizens of Europe. Not only do they waste our taxes on fancy offices, outrageous pay packets, enormous pensions and no-expense-spared foreign trips, they then have the temerity to cover up how much they have spent.

For three years – an astonishing length of time – campaigners have been asking the EU to release details of commissioners’ travel expenses. In return for all that effort the commission has released the records for January and February 2016. And nothing else.

That information does at least reveal that during this two-month period alone the commissioners managed to rack up a travel bill of almost half a million euros. No wonder they are so desperate to prevent people investigating further.

Nevertheless, giving such limited expenses information is utterly shameful. There is no good reason why they cannot give us proper records and explain how they have been using our money. By way of contrast it is easy to find official records detailing years’ worth of our MPs’ expenses online. That is how a properly accountable public body operates.

The European Commission is a shadowy organisation with no commitment to transparency and no understanding of what it means to have to answer to voters. What a relief we are about to escape the clutches of the power-hungry bureaucrats who run it and return to sovereign self-government with power held by our elected MPs.