DUP Member of the European Parliament, Jim Allister, has welcomed the additional €100 million in humanitarian aid committed by the European Union President today to the relief of the Tsunami disaster in South East Asia.

Jim Allister said, “This additional €100 million in humanitarian aid is a welcome improvement on the European Union’s initial commitment to help relieve the suffering of those caught up in tsunami.  I intend to keep the pressure on the EU to ensure that this commitment is kept and that it materialises into a real contribution.

There is undoubtedly scope for further increases within the EU budget.  By trimming many of the foolish excesses in EU expenditure, with millions wasted on propping up self-perpetuating “think tanks”, pro-EU propaganda, excessive refurbishments of Commission premises, over generous pre-accession aid (286.2M euro going to Turkey this year alone, though it might never join) and multi millions lost in fraud (for the tenth successive year the official auditors have refused to sign off the Commission’s books), the EU would have undoubted room for a radical improvement.

It is somewhat disingenuous of the EU to suggest that its overall contribution to the tsunami disaster relief now stands at €1.5 billion.  The majority of that figure is made up of the stand alone donations of member states and the EU should not use creative accounting to make its own position look better”.