UK refuses to endorse EU accounts

GEORGE OSBORNE has refused to endorse the European Commission's accounts after auditors refused to sign them off for 16 consecutive years.

The chancellor abstained from a vote to back the accounts during a meeting if European finance ministers and joined Norway and Sweden in calling for a special report on how European grants are awards, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The state of the EU's accounts has caused much controversy in the past. In January this year the commission's former chief accountant, Marta Andreasen, called for an external auditor to be appointed.

Andreasen, now an MEP, was responding to claims that auditors for the EU were regularly subjected to intimidation.

She attempted and failed to become head of the EU's anti fraud unit OLAF.