Open Europe’s Mats Persson has a comment piece on EUobserver responding to a piece by EU Commissioner Siim Kallas regarding the EU budget and the European Court of Auditors’ annual report. Mats argues, “The fundamental problem of waste and mismanagement involving EU money lies primarily with the budget itself – not with the member states, although they should not entirely e...

Open Europe’s ranking of all 785 MEPs continues to receive coverage. Open Europe’s Research Director Mats Persson appeared on CNBC’s Europe Tonight show, discussing the findings of the report. The ranking was also mentioned on this morning’s BBC Breakfast Show, in the Scotsman, and several other European and regional newspapers.

Open Europe has obtained a list of which MEPs have and have not, as of last week, signed a European Parliament Declaration calling for an end to the monthly trip between Brussels and Strasbourg. Open Europe has written to all those MEPs who have not signed, urging them to do so before the deadline tomorrow.

Open Europe has today published a closely guarded secret list of those MEPs who have opted into the voluntary second pension fund. The list, which dates from December 2007, reveals that 79 percent of British and 77 percent of Irish MEPs had signed up to the fund.

Open Europe’s report on the EU’s AIFM Directive continues to receive coverage. The report, published yesterday, found that the hedge fund and private equity industry contributed €9 billion in tax revenues to EU governments in 2008, and that the proposed Directive would cost EU-based firms in the two industries between €1.

The European Court of Auditors will today publish its annual report on the EU’s accounts. As in previous years, the Auditors are expected to highlight widespread problems with fraud and mismanagement in the EU’s spending programmes. The News of the World reported on Open Europe’s briefing published yesterday detailing 100 examples of misuse of EU money.

New Open Europe report: Cost of EU agencies has tripled since 2005 and is set to reach £2.1 billion in 2011 A new Open Europe report released yesterday reveals that the cost of EU agencies and committees has tripled since 2005 and, according to the European Commission’s proposed budget, is set to reach £2.

Dropping into my inbox this week was an invite to attend an Open Europe event called ‘EU communication policy: biased propaganda?’. A bit rich! Despite styling themselves as an ‘independent think tank’, Open Europe consistently produces what can only be described as biased propaganda. By misleading and using selective quoting Open Europe, with a helping hand from the media, very successful...

Open Europe’s new report on the EU’s climate change and energy package, expected to cost £9bn a year and push one million more people into fuel poverty, is covered in the Telegraph and on carbon industry website Point Carbon. Open Europe’s Hugo Robinson is quoted arguing that “we will pay far more than necessary in fighting climate change; or put another way, we could...

A new report from Open Europe has found that 170,000 people are needed to run the EU, as opposed to the 32,000 that the EU Commission claims. Open Europe analyst Nick Cosgrove was quoted by the Telegraph, Mail and De Telegraaf as saying, "The Commission desperately tries to play down just how many people are now working for the EU.