EU’s secret £400m for 'crazy’ projects

[hereward]

European bureaucrats have set up a secretive fund of £400 million to pay for projects that include promoting a “smelly-foot” dance and producing postcards about the causes of “social exclusion

Researchers have unearthed a series of grants issued to schemes deemed “confidential” that have not been subject to outside scrutiny. Taxpayers’ money spent on the projects, many of which have been described as “crazy”, has increased since the onset of recession.
The schemes include £145,000 to print 736 postcards that “reflect the current problems in Europe that generate social exclusion” and £166,000 on a street circus project whose aim is to “strengthen international understanding”. Producing the postcards in six EU countries cost nearly £200 per card. According to a report by Open Europe, a UK-based think tank, the £400 million was allocated to projects originally deemed “confidential”. The projects have now been listed on the European Commission’s newly-created database of beneficiaries of EU funds. Open Europe analysts said they had unearthed “some pretty outrageous stuff”. Stephen Booth, of the think tank, said, “There are some crazy projects but also a lot of money going to projects considered 'confidential’. “The Commission’s website simply says that 'in certain cases, some parts of the information displayed on a particular grant or contract may be masked, for example, for security reasons’.”
Between 2007 and 2009, the database shows the Commission awarded a total of 727 grants in which the beneficiary is marked as confidential, amounting to a total value of just over £400m. Some recipients have been named including the London-based Flying Gorillas troupe, whose act includes the “brilliant smelly foot dance and the incredibly difficult iguana four-step”. It received £162,000. Another £124,000 went to London-based artists BodyDataSpace for a project on “evolving global, social and technological shifts”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-projects.html

When I am made aware of such madness, I sometimes wonder if I have been abducted by green men and transported to a Planet, which is an exact replics of Earth, though it is populated by Homo Cuntus.

[Stygian Cellarius]

When I am made aware of such madness, I sometimes wonder if I have been abducted by green men and transported to a Planet, which is an exact replics of Earth, though it is populated by Homo Cuntus.

Oh yeah, we are living in a true life Twilight Zone. No doubt about that. The utter insanity and inverted rationality of our leaders never ceases to..... I don't even know what to say about it.

When I was younger, I would have never believed that our leaders, or the public for that matter, could be shown an apple and think it's the sky.

...but I believe it now.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by hereward
When I am made aware of such madness, I sometimes wonder if I have been abducted by green men and transported to a Planet, which is an exact replics of Earth, though it is populated by Homo Cuntus.

Council tax never goes down, always up, towards the end of the business year you will find road works where work does not need doing and vast sums spent on buildings we didn’t need and projects nobody wants. It justifies keeping the taxes high and the amount that “disappears” you know the sort of thing, £15,000 for a pen and the like.

Was it Oscar Wild who said government is organised robbery?

[RoyBatty]

When I am made aware of such madness, I sometimes wonder if I have been abducted by green men and transported to a Planet, which is an exact replics of Earth, though it is populated by Homo Cuntus.

Stop wondering!!! Instead let's make plans how to divert the gravy our way!!!!