Should anyone be interested in a balanced view have a look at:
http://www.social-europe.eu/2011/03/the-court-of-auditors-the-need-for-assurance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SEJColumns+%28Social+Europe+Journal+%C2%BB+Columns%29
In brief the author states:
"One of the sticks which the anti-Europeans love to beat the EU with is the claim that the EU accounts have not been 'signed off' for more than 10 years. They repeatedly use this to conjure up images of widespread fraud and corruption.
This perceived failure to 'sign off' the accounts is treated as a unique and exceptional event in the world of government accounting. Yet, the UK's Department of Works and Pensions which has a much bigger budget than the EU regularly fails to have its accounts 'signed off'. Similar questions are regularly raised about the accuracy of the Ministry of Defence accounts and about the UK's Inland Revenue. Indeed, the US federal budget has been known not to be 'signed off' by the National Accounting Office".
