The European Court of Auditors has declined to give the European Commission's accounts a clean bill of health for the 15th year in a row.

Papers published today [10 Nov] for 2008 reveal that the court accepted the accounts "present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Communities" but note "weaknesses in the accounting systems .... still put at risk the quality of financial information of certain directorates general ....."

It complains in particular about "pre-financing", invoicing and the assets of the European Satellite Programme Galileo. It added that payments underlying accounts related to "cohesion", "research, energy and transport" and "external aid" are "materially affected by error".

It says the Commission has not been able to demonstrate its efforts to improve supervisory and control systems have been effective in mitigating the risk of error.