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		Letter to the Editor Nottingham Evening Post - Tuesday 23rd May 2006 Dear Sir, John Gretton (letters, 19/5) plays the standard europhile's defensive stroke against accusations of fraud and corruption in the EU Commission: "Well, it's really down to member-states to spend most of the budget, so we should blame them, not the Commission". Let's get a few facts straight here. When Marta Andreason was appointed Chief Financial Officer of the EU in 2002, she was the first qualified accountant to hold that post in the history of the EU. She says that the Commission didn't even have double-entry book-keeping -- one of the basic tools of accountancy. There were no audit trails. Any member of the Commission staff could go into the system and change the numbers without leaving any record. The Commission's accounts were a shambles. Yet when she drew attention to the shortcomings, she was first side-lined, then sacked. This is typical. No one gets fired from the Commission for incompetence or dishonesty. They are only fired for whistle-blowing. It may well be that some leakage and mismanagement of EU funds occurs within member states, but the fish rots from the head, and the problem starts right here in Brussels. Gretton equates "success" for the euro with the strength of the currency. He needs a basic lesson in economics. The euro, contrary to promises made when it was launched, has been highly volatile, and its current strength is a huge problem for EU exporters, not a success at all. Amongst serious economic commentators, the question is not "Has the euro been a success?", but "Which country will be first to leave?", or even "How long can it last?". Previous attempts at single currencies or fixed exchange rate mechanisms have rarely survived twenty years, and there is little reason to believe the euro will do better. Roger Helmer Conservative MEP for Nottinghamshire