Europe accuses UK of creative accounting
Budget commissioner says Britain uses 'statistical creativity' to keep its rebate
The UK has been accused by the European Union’s top budget official of
creative accounting in an attempt to keep its hotly-contested rebate.
Lithuanian budget commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite launched a stinging attack
on the government, saying it misrepresented its contribution to the EU, less
than a month before a critical summit on the budget convenes.
Grybauskaite said that for the last 20 years the UK had accepted that customs
receipts were part of the EU’s direct revenues and did not count as national
payments.
‘Now the British Treasury integrates that and inflates its payments in an
extraordinary way,’ she said.
Grybauskaite added that the UK showed ‘statistical creativity’ by using its
figures for budget commitments, not all of which are spent in any given year,
rather than actual payments, according to Reuters.