Friends of Clean Accounts is a group of European politicians advocating and working towards "clean accounts" of the EU. By this they mean ordinary (i.e., proper) accounting and controlling, leading to efficient use of funds throughout the EU. An important part of this endeavor is transparent information and free access to it.
This group has been initiated by people of the EU-critical SOS Democracy, but comprises all those interested in its purpose – including proponents of the EU. Gabriele Stauner, member of the EU Parliament's Budget Control Committee, presides most of the group's meetings, organized by the group's speaker Jens-Peter Bonde / and Chris Heaton-Harris .
The Friends of Clean Accounts also supports so called "whistle-blowers" in their fight against corruption within the EU institutions and EU projects. So they warred off the dismissal of Paul van Buitenen . Or invited the suspended Chief Auditor Marta Andreasen to the EU Parliament to present her analyses of the grave faults of EU accounts and ways to improvement. Or supported Hans-Martin Tillack – editor of Stern, who also revealed the Eurostat scandal and with Andreas Oldag is a co-author of a book on the EU Spaceship Brussels (Raumschiff Brüssel) – in his rights as he was arrested by Belgian police at the request of the EU anti-fraud office OLAF.
They also made pressure on the Santer Commission to withdraw on March 19, 1999, collected signatures for the Motion of Censure against the Commission during spring of 2004 on the grounds of the Eurostat scandal.
Famous quotes containing the words friends of, friends, clean and/or accounts:
“It has come to this, that the friends of liberty, the friends of the slave, have shuddered when they have understood that his fate was left to the legal tribunals of the country to be decided. Free men have no faith that justice will be awarded in such a case.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.... Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)
“Perhaps the fact that I am not a Radical or a believer in the all powerful ballot for women to right her wrongs and that I do not scorn womanly duties, but claim it as a privilege to clean up and sort of supervise the room and sew things, etc., is winning me stronger allies than anything else.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“We must love one another, yes, yes, that’s all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other. It may be the very recognition of all men as our brothers that accounts for the sibling rivalry, and even enmity, we have toward so many of them.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)