Bloated EU spends over $2 billion a year on self promotion including a 'broadcast channel,' has 44 'diplomats' stationed in Barbados

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9/29/13, "EU's £2.4bn ad budget higher than Coca-Cola's: Huge amount revealed in new 'fiscal factbook' that also details how it has 44 diplomats in Barbados," UK Daily Mail, Steve Doughty

"The European Union spends more on advertising than the drinks giant Coca-Cola, according to a new analysis of how Brussels uses our money.

Its budget for promoting itself and all its works comes to £2.4billion a year. That compares to the £2.13billion spent in the same year by the soft drinks company on promoting its brand around the world.

The vast scale of the EU’s self-promotion was set down in a new ‘fiscal factbook’ designed to shed light on how Brussels spends the billions it receives from Britain and other member countries.

Small-scale bills highlighted in the report include £160,000 paid towards a yet to open fitness and rehabilitation centre for dogs in Hungary.

And on a larger scale the report details how the ambitions of EU diplomacy has seen 44 diplomats stationed in Barbados, one of Europe’s less-troubled trading partner nations.

It also points to some of the widely-known but often forgotten aspects of EU spending condemned as driven by political folly.

Among these is the annual budget of £150 million for ferrying MEPs and their staff between the European Parliament’s two headquarters buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg to appease politicians in Belgium and France. 

The EU Fiscal Factbook, published by the TaxPayers’ Alliance at the Tory conference, is likely to sharpen differences over Europe among the party’s MPs.
It comes at a time of deep anxiety over pressure from Ukip, which demands withdrawal from the EU.

The TPA’s founder Matthew Elliott said: ‘Britain’s contribution to the EU gets bigger every year.

‘That means bigger tax bills for families and too much of the money is wasted. Brussels also makes life difficult for British businesses with draconian regulations....

The Court of Auditors has refused to approve the EU budget for 18 successive years over concerns about mismanagement and fraud....

The European Commission has told EU members states they should contribute an extra £3.5billion to Brussels this year to meet unexpected ‘legal obligations’. 

The bail-out will bring EU spending this year to £126billion, 8.4 per cent up on the previous year....

Of overall spending, £44billion this year will go on the Common Agricultural Policy, the farm subsidy system often derided as the means by which France shores up its rural economy.
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The CAP paid handouts of more than £250,000 each to 889 British landowners in 2011, and more than £1million each to 47 landowners. The report calculated the burden of EU regulation on the British economy at £124billion, or £5,000 for every British household.

The advertising budget included £15million on a Parliamentarium, opened in 2011 as a supposed tourist attraction, but described by critics as a ‘propaganda temple’.

The cost of EU advertising was calculated in 2008 by the Open Europe think-tank, and includes a broadcast channel, an opinion polling organisation, films and huge numbers of publications, funding for sympathetic pressure groups, and special publicity conferences." via Free Republic