Merry Troughmas!

Note: I am not the lovely Trixy.

All aboard the Christmas gravy train:

The European Union’s institutions in Brussels have been accused of squandering millions of Euro of European taxpayers’ money by paying for their employees’ Christmas travel expenses at a time of economic crisis. Hans-Peter Martin, an independent member of the European Parliament from Austria, wrote to the press denouncing this “shocking privilege.”

“The money would be better spent financing meaningful social projects,” Martin wrote. Last year, the European Commission and the European Council jointly spent just under 47 million Euro (USD 65 million dollars) to pay for the Christmas travel arrangements of their 22,800-odd employees.

Now, 47 million Euro is chump change, let's face it, when compared to horrors like the cost of the CAP. And many people might even say that it's quite fair for an international organisation to fund a trip home for Christmas. All good and well.

But (and you knew there was one, didn't you?) let's just do the sums shall we? 47 million Euros divided by 22,800 employees gives us an average of well over 2000 Euros per person!

Now, given that the EU institutions are, by definition, all in Europe, what the fuck do they need an AVERAGE of 2000 Euros for, to get from one bit of Europe to another bit of Europe? For fuck's sake, you can drive from Belgium to most of the EU in a day. 2000 Euros buys an awful lot of fuel. Accepting that far-flung places like Spain and Portugal or the Eastern bloc might need a flight, that's what, 250 Euros? 500 Euros if you're generous to a fault. And I bet that more people who work for the EU live closer to their work than those that live further away.

What the fuck are they pissing all our money away on?