The Great European Rip-off: How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of Our Lives [Paperback]

In this EU election year, it's time for people across Europe to look at what really goes on in Brussels in our name.

It has been estimated that the EU costs us around £1,000 billion a year - an incredible £2000 for every man, woman and child in Europe. So what do we get for our money? Politicians and administrators selflessly working to bring us efficient government? Well-targeted regulations that promote economic prosperity? A safe and free society? A well-protected environment? Help for people in poorer countries?

Or is our money being squandered by a self-serving euro-elite of unaccountable politicians and incompetent bureaucrats, or else devoured in a feeding frenzy of fraud and corruption where a few lucky insiders become unimaginably rich at our expense? And is the tsunami of regulation pouring out of Brussels in reality strangling industry, destroying jobs, restricting personal freedom, desecrating the environment and further impoverishing the developing world?

Using their extensive network of insider sources, David Craig and Matthew Elliott smash through the secrecy and disinformation that are the Brussels hallmark to reveal what our European rulers are really getting up to. The result is a horrifying story of bureaucracy, hypocrisy and kleptocracy - and how we are all suffering as a result.

In this EU election year, it's time for people across Europe to look at what really goes on in Brussels in our name.

It has been estimated that the EU costs us around £1,000 billion a year - an incredible £2000 for every man, woman and child in Europe. So what do we get for our money? Politicians and administrators selflessly working to bring us efficient government? Well-targeted regulations that promote economic prosperity? A safe and free society? A well-protected environment? Help for people in poorer countries?

Or is our money being squandered by a self-serving euro-elite of unaccountable politicians and incompetent bureaucrats, or else devoured in a feeding frenzy of fraud and corruption where a few lucky insiders become unimaginably rich at our expense? And is the tsunami of regulation pouring out of Brussels in reality strangling industry, destroying jobs, restricting personal freedom, desecrating the environment and further impoverishing the developing world?

Using their extensive network of insider sources, David Craig and Matthew Elliott smash through the secrecy and disinformation that are the Brussels hallmark to reveal what our European rulers are really getting up to. The result is a horrifying story of bureaucracy, hypocrisy and kleptocracy - and how we are all suffering as a result.

David Craig has spent most of his career as a management consultant working for and competing against some of the world's best and worst management and IT systems consultancies. He has helped to sell consulting to almost 100 organisations in 15 countries across Europe, Asia and the US, as well as the British public sector. He is the author of the controversial bestsellers Rip-Off! The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine, Plundering the Public Sector, and, most recently, Squandered: How Gordon Brown is Wasting Over One Trillion Pounds of Our Money. He has an MA from Cambridge and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Matthew Elliott is Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, the UK's most high-profile campaign group. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and sits on the Advisory Committee of the New Culture Forum. His last book was The Bumper Book of Government Waste 2008 (Harriman House).