Court short a few francs, French francs that is

Date: 11/01/1996

Who watches the watchdogs?

We do, luckily. Europe's financial watchdogs are just as prone to make mistakes as the rest of us.

The wife of Court of Auditors' President André Middelhoek was so impressed by the caricature of her husband that appeared in European Voice recently that she decided to try to buy it as a present to mark André's retirement after a two-year spell as Europe's number one number-cruncher.

We put her in touch with our Vienna-based maestro of the artistic flourish, Marco Villard, who was only too happy to do business with so distinguished a customer.

They settled on a price for the original of the caricature, a rather fine representation of André as the noted sleuth Sherlock Holmes, peering through his magnifying glass into some dubious agricultural undergrowth in the form of olive trees, where doubtless lurked some fraudulent goings-on involving huge subsidies and the misappropriation of taxpayers' money.

Naturally enough in these pre-Euro times, there was much debate between Villard and Middelhoek's office in Luxembourg as to what currency he should be paid in.

A deal was finally concluded and the satisfied client received an invoice for 1,750 French francs.

As you would expect from someone so close to the top of the Court of Auditors, payment was prompt and without quibbling - a cash transfer to the artist's bank account for 1,750 francs. Unfortunately these were the Belgian sort of francs, which, although worthy enough in their own right, do not carry so much weight, pound for pound, as French ones. We are sure the error will be remedied, but maybe André's nearest and dearest has accidentally stumbled on the answer to excessive Euro-subsidy payments to our much-maligned farmers.