MEPs accused of funding ‘pet projects’ with culture budget

Date: 10/05/01

By David Cronin

MEPs are being accused by their own colleagues of spending the European Parliament's culture budget - worth almost €5 million a year - on 15 "pet projects" that leave other organisations out in the cold.

The warning comes from members of the Parliament's culture committee, who argue that the practice of earmarking funds for groups selected by the MEPs themselves should be abandoned and replaced with an open tendering process.

UK Conservative Chris Heaton-Harris said many MEPs have an "iffy" relationship with the recipients, in some cases having a direct influence over their management.

Socialist group leader Enrique Baron Crespo is a board member, for example, of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, which received a grant worth €325,000 last year.

Mercedes Echerer, an Austrian Green deputy, questions why the assistance provided under one of the two budget lines involved goes to music organisations, even though its remit is to boost culture in general.

"Direct cultural funding needs to be taken out of the hands of politicians," said Echerer, who divides her life between politics and acting.

MEPs are also angry that the European Commission submitted only a partial evaluation of funds spent last year to the committee, despite being requested to provide full details by late March.

Christophe Forax, the spokesman for culture chief Viviane Reding, blamed the delay on staff shortages.

The fact that MEPs propose which projects should be financed leaves the Commission in an "uncomfortable position", he said.

"We have to execute the budget without having any control on the proposals."

The Parliament's rapporteur on cultural funding, Finnish Socialist Ulpu Ilvari, said she is examining how the funding could be made subject to more stringent rules and hopes to table proposals before the summer break.

MEPs are being accused by their own colleagues of spending the European Parliament's culture budget - worth almost €5 million a year - on 15 'pet projects' that leave other organisations out in the cold.