£7m blown on treats for fatcat Eurocrats

Fury at taxpayers' cash wasted

£24,500 bill ... EU President Jose Manuel Barroso

FREELOADING Eurocrats have spent £7million of taxpayers' cash on private jets, posh hotels and even Tiffany jewellery.

EU chiefs blew the vast sums as recession-hit economies across Europe face massive budget cuts and beg for billions in IMF bail-outs.
The shameful waste includes £6.5MILLION on private jet travel for Commissioners between 2006 and 2010. Another £17,500 went on luxury gifts for guest speakers between 2008 and 2010.
The presents included Tiffany jewellery, cufflinks and fountain pens.
In 2009, cocktail parties alone accounted for £260,000 of expenditure.
A £24,500 bill was run up by EU President Jose Manuel Barroso and eight aides during a four-night stay at New York's £680-a-night Peninsula Hotel.
Officials splashed out £65,700 for an event in Amsterdam where guests were promised a "night filled with wonder".
The Commission also treated officials and their families to away days at top resorts in Papua New Guinea and Ghana.
On one occasion, a delegation of 44 Commission staff based in Hanoi, Vietnam, were flown to the country's five-star Palm Garden Resort at Cua Dai Beach for an "annual away day".

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Eurocrats' expenses ... click to see more

It was designed to "facilitate internal co-operation".
Last November it emerged Brussels bureaucrats blew £160,000 on a fitness centre for dogs. It never opened.
The latest figures have been unearthed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism at London's City University.
The Commission is currently proposing a 4.9 per cent rise in its 2012 budget. In October 2010 PM David Cameron claimed victory after keeping the increase this year to 2.9 per cent. It was set to be six per cent.
But it still meant an extra £430million for Europe's coffers.
Emma Boon, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "This is a disgrace.
"They are spending on luxury goods and private jets whilst we are cutting spending at home."Independent Austrian MEP Martin Ehrehauser said: "This makes the gap between citizens and the EU bureaucracy even bigger and deeper."
The European Commission confirmed the figures but insisted the spending was "justified."