Posted, April 29, 2012 @ 22:00
A senior Conservative MEP today responded angrily to revelations about a deal to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on private jets to whisk the EU's top officials around the globe in luxury.
The Sunday Times reported that the European Commission had just signed a contract costing more than €12 million for private jets to ferry senior Commissioners such as President Jose Manuel Barroso, Brtiain's Baroness Ashton and their acolytes between meetings.
Only on Wednesday the Commission provoked fury by proposing an inflation-busting 6.8 per cent increase in the EU's budget for 2013.
Martin Callanan, Conservative MEP for the North East and leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, said: "Coming just days after Commission leaders put forward a preposterous set of budget proposals, claiming they were doing all they could to save money, this confirms that they really have no shame.
"They have lost their moral and financial compass and they are prepared to ensure they get to live the high life, whatever the expense and whatever other people's hardship.
"They seem to live in their own little bubble where they are perpetually pampered and they have no thought for how things look to the outside world."