SIR – When the European Court of Auditors publishes its annual audit, Eurosceptics jump up and down saying that EU spending is riddled with fraud and corruption and cannot sign-off its own accounts.

The reality is different. The Court of Auditors stated in November that the EU’s accounts ‘gave a fair representation of its finances’. In other words, the accounts were in fact signed-off.

This compares with the US federal budget which has not had a positive statement of assurance for the last ten years and the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions which has not had an equivalent statement in the past 15 years – and its budget is larger than that of the whole of the EU.

Sir John Bourn, former head of the UK Audit Office, has said that if he had used the same system as the Court of Auditors, then he would have had to disqualify the whole of UK Government expenditure.

The EU’s auditing standards are stringent and any errors encountered tend to be where funds are managed by national governments.

It is mischievous of organisations like UKIP to misrepresent the EU and to con people like Pamela McCallum (Letters, January 4) into believing their propaganda.

Stuart Baker, Markham Croft, Leeds