1.45 billion euros....

[woolybanana]

.....is the sum that France has to payback the EU for bad accounting, fraud and mistakes in allocating money to farmers under the common agricultural policy. And that is just for 2008-2012.

France is by far the biggest culprit it seems; and here was me thinking it was Italians and Greeks with olive trees on wheels that moved to different fields when the salellite passed overhead, and the Irish whose cattle knew the way across the border and back, so often had they been exported.....

Of course, other countries are being caught too as the EU tries to clamp down on misuse of funds, but one wonders how much has been "misallocated" since the policy began? How many shiny new tractors have farmers been able to obtain by misdeclaring their acreage, the number of cattle/sheep/pigs/slaves/ cabbages or whatever?

http://www.lepoint.fr/economie/pac-la-france-va-devoir-rendre-a-l-ue-un-milliard-d-euros-d-aides-agricoles-27-01-2015-1900026_28.php

[nomoss]

The bigger the organisation the easier it is to steal from, and the EU is among the biggest.

After all, if everyone else is doing it, no-one wants to get left behind [:D]

[idun]

Wooly, And there was me thinking you had had rather a handsome lottery win and were going to treat us all.

Bof, 1.45billion........ the surprise is that it isn't more[:-))]

[Frederick]

The whole CAP  thing   is a joke ..... Here is another rip off  of the tax payer to see farmers alright !

http://www.epha.org/6218

[idun]

I wish that they would see the dairy farmers OK. There is something really wrong with milk prices at the moment.

[blondie]

Our local small dairy farming family is doing ok I think. They get over 60,000 a year in subsidies. You wouldnt know to look at them or the farm though. :}

[Gluestick]

[quote user="woolybanana"].....is the sum that France has to payback the EU for bad accounting, fraud and mistakes in allocating money to farmers under the common agricultural policy. And that is just for 2008-2012.

France is by far the biggest culprit it seems; and here was me thinking it was Italians and Greeks with olive trees on wheels that moved to different fields when the salellite passed overhead, and the Irish whose cattle knew the way across the border and back, so often had they been exported.....

Of course, other countries are being caught too as the EU tries to clamp down on misuse of funds, but one wonders how much has been "misallocated" since the policy began? How many shiny new tractors have farmers been able to obtain by misdeclaring their acreage, the number of cattle/sheep/pigs/slaves/ cabbages or whatever?

http://www.lepoint.fr/economie/pac-la-france-va-devoir-rendre-a-l-ue-un-milliard-d-euros-d-aides-agricoles-27-01-2015-1900026_28.php[/quote]

Once upon a time..........

A Tale of Two Brownies and their Friend

One day, on the edge of the Dark Woods, a place no sensible Brownie ever ventured into, the three friends met to discuss what everyone in the land was saying about them.

Now, we all hate nasty people talking about us behind our back, but the three chums were particularly sad that nearly everyone else hated them so much and said such rude things to them!

Tujags, who was really a very ugly Brownie indeed, with a chin that stuck out and big rolls of fat around his neck and his middle, spoke in a funny voice; still, his small elf friend, Little Shoddy, thought he was lovely. In fact, Little Shoddy loved Tujags so very much that he made him second in their gang, of which Little Shoddy was the leader.

Their other friend was called One Eye: now One Eye was a strange Brownie indeed! He came from a land far away in the North where they ate porridge and drank a strange magic brew called Singlemalt. Poor One Eye had a bad jaw and when he spoke, every so often, he had to open it wide to stop it sticking. Some of the people thought it would be wonderful if it stuck shut for ever but that was being really unkind.

Little Shoddy had huge eyes, like Bambi and also had very big teeth, like a sort of shark.

So the friends of the gang, which they had named Nulabur, - this was a very magic word known only to Brownies, elves and the very bad demons called Faalepht, who lived in the Dark Wood - met to discuss their problems.

One of their biggest problems was petrol, since Little Shoddy and Tujags had been unable to drive their cars and meet each other for a feast and whilst they didn't think that having no petrol mattered to all the other people, it really mattered to them, particularly Tujags, since he was anxious to become a very important Brownie indeed and grow yet another large roll of fat round his neck. For Brownies who are important can be recognised by the number of rolls of fat they have round their necks.

They also had another big, big problem: this was the magic Millennium Mushroom.

As the gang who had taken over ruling all the other people, like fairies, elves, Brownies, animals, humans, dryads, football supporters and well, everyone else really, Nulabur wanted everyone to love them and think they were wonderful.

The Mushroom had been a disaster!

Little Shoddy and his chums hadn't actually built it: another gang, from whom they had taken over, had started building it before Shoddy's gang convinced all the people he was so lovely that he was the best one for leader.

But Shoddy and his friends thought the Mushroom was so wonderful, that they spent huge amounts of all the peoples' gold, despite the people saying it was a waste and they made another of their friends, a sheep called Bob Ailing, the head man in charge. Bob was sick, which was why he was called Ailing, probably: and then not only did he ruin the Mushroom but he almost destroyed another thing called BeeeAA and this really upset lots of people, particularly those who worked at BeeeAA.

All the people thought that the gold they had spent on the Mushroom could have been used to buy sweets and ice-creams and making people better when they were sick and nice things like that.

To make matters worse, much of the gold had come from a game, where the people paid small gold coins to another of the Gang's friends called Scamalot, in the hope that one person would win enough gold back to buy a large castle in the clouds.

And the latest trouble was with the petrol: Little Shoddy sat in his car and tooted the horn miserably, since with no petrol it couldn't work. What were they to do?

One Eye was the member of the gang who sent round bullying Brownies called Eye-Arr and Kustums to steal gold from the other people: it was stealing really, because when you promise to do something, like mow your Granny's lawn and she gives you pocket money and you take the money and then don't cut Granny's lawn, well, we all know that is stealing, don’t we?

One Eye was very grumpy and miserable and his jaw kept sticking as he spoke - you could always tell when One Eye was grumpy; the grumpier he was, the more his jaw stuck!

Anyway, he refused to stop his bullies stealing gold from the people and so the people decided to sit outside all the places where the petrol comes from in the big lorries and vans and cars and stop the petrol from being delivered to garages in those great big tankers that we all see on the motorway when we're playing Eye Spy with Mummy, whilst Daddy is swearing at all the other motorists and working himself up into a sweat and making strange signs out of the window that Mummy won't explain to us what they mean.

One Eye said it was really, all the fault of the Seven Sisters, who were ugly old witches who sat around holes in the ground sucking up black goo.

The Seven Sisters said it wasn't their fault: it was all because some Sultans, who lived far away across the sea in a strange land made of desert and all covered in sand who rode about on camels and lived in tents had formed a magic club which they called Opek and Opek weaved spells on all the other people in the World!

Now, one of the Sultans was a fierce man with dark glittering eyes and a black  moustache  and everyone was so afraid of him, that they sold him guns and warships and bullets and rockets which they swapped for the black goo watched over by the Seven Sisters.

When this Sultan, who was called Sod'em Hessian - whose mother and father made carpets for the tents, which was where his name came from - had enough guns he swooped on another little land close by and set fire to one of the Seven Sister's biggest holes!

So all the other countries had to send even more guns and planes and warships and soldiers to chase him away and put out the fire.

Shoddy and his friends told One Eye to steal even more gold from the people to pay for all their guns and planes and warships which had been destroyed by Sod'em and the people became even more annoyed!

As the people became more and more angry, Little Shoddy, Tujags and One Eye decided to steal even more gold from the people and they built a huge tower made from ivory and lived right at the top, away from all the people and all the rude things they were saying about Shoddy's Nulabur gang and as far away from the Mushroom as possible, because it was such a big disaster and very embarrassing to Shoddy.

But as Shoddy and his friends sat in their tower, they ignored the people more and more and more and spent even more of the gold that One Eye's bullies were stealing from the people in ever greater amounts, on lovely carpets, and special doctors who made their Spin feel better, when it felt ill.

These doctors were really very naughty men, who didn't know what they were doing, because really, there was nothing wrong with the Spin at all. All it needed was a nice holiday most of the time, when it was under the weather: and when it was sulking, like all of us, a good smack.

Like most really bad people, these doctors told lies and we all know what happens to people who tell lies, don't we!

They make lots of money and become knights and noblemen and build their own ivory towers to keep out all the people they have lied to.

Eventually, the people became so angry and unhappy that they asked another wrinkled bald Brownie called WilHayg to form another gang to take over from Little Shoddy and his friends One Eye and Tujags.

So Wilhayg formed a new gang called Tauree, which was a very special magic word which was only used quietly when no one else could hear, because if it was uttered aloud, all the family silver would vanish in a flash!

Wilhayg's chums were another ugly greasy Brownie called Portaloo; he was called Portaloo because once, when he was rising to the top of the Brownies, it all went wrong and then his life went down the toilet.

Unusually, Wilhayg made a very fat very ugly female Brownie the other member of his gang: she was called Widdikins and had a strange voice which squeaked a lot. When she became excited, her voice squeaked even more and her fat wobbled like a big jelly on a plate!

So Wilhayg and his friends banished Shoddy and Tujags and One Eye to the Dark Woods and they became Faalepht, instead of Brownies and then went off to a place called Euroland, which was full of jesters and court fools, who stole even more gold from the people and built a huge ivory tower so that they could meet every day and talk about nothing in particular and ways to steal even more gold from the people to waste on doing nothing, except talking even more and spending more gold.

And guess what? Wilhayg and his gang, Tauree stole even more gold from the people and gave it to a god called Kapital and in ten years, most of the good people had left the country and gone to live somewhere else. The only people who stayed were friends of Kapital and his priests and servants and the old people and sick and poor people, who were unable to make the journey or afford it and they starved and dressed in rags and became beggars.

So, the moral of this story, is that if we allow a gang of fairies and Brownies to rule our land, we will get just what we deserve: magic Mushrooms, Ivory Towers and starving beggars.

Copyright September 2000

PDD (Resources) Ltd

(With apologies to Tolkien, Pratchet and Blyton)

[Jonzjob]

Can you simplyfie that a bit GS? I got lost about 3 lines down mate?[8-)]

[Rabbie]

[quote user="blondie"]Our local small dairy farming family is doing ok I think. They get over 60,000 a year in subsidies. You wouldnt know to look at them or the farm though. :}
[/quote]Don't know if you live in France or the UK but English dairy farmers are really suffering at the moment and many have gone out of the business in the last few years

[Lehaut]

How do you "fine" a government. They have no money, they take it from us. So as I see it, they have to raise more money from us via taxes and social charges to pay the fine. Same as the Banks that are fined, they don't pay, the customer does.

Ineffective in the long term but makes good headlines. They should fine/imprison the ministers responsible rather than visit it on us.

[PaulT]

Unfortunatley Lehaut it is the people who elect the ministers so the people are responsible.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="PaulT"]Unfortunatley Lehaut it is the people who elect the ministers so the people are responsible.[/quote]There have been many cases where a prime minister has appointed non-elected people as ministers and brought them into parliament either through a bye-election or giving them a life peerage. The people have little say in this as they often have to choose between what appears to be the less bad option. The people also have no easy means of sacking an individual minister.

 

[Frederick]

If a farmer who has been making fraudulent claims for money from the CAP knew that if found out he would have his farm taken into the ownership of the state who's taxpayers he has defrauded And a honest person be appointed to run it as a tenant of the community    ..... He would not do it .... IMO  a simple answer to the problem  Why has the French government  /taxpayer been called upon to repay these amounts connected to fraud and not the farmers and connected industries ?

[blondie]

[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="blondie"]Our local small dairy farming family is doing ok I think. They get over 60,000 a year in subsidies. You wouldnt know to look at them or the farm though. :}

[/quote]Don't know if you live in France or the UK but English dairy farmers are really suffering at the moment and many have gone out of the business in the last few years[/quote]

 I thought this thread was about fraud and bad accounting in the French system but for clarification I should have probably said  "over 60,000 euros".