Taxpayers foot huge EU Presidency bill

national | eu | news report Monday January 12, 2004 18:51 by pat - lp

The six-month EU Presidency, which puts the particular member state under the glare of a political and media spotlight, also brings enormous costs.

Ireland, which holds the EU Presidency for the first half of this year, is no exception.

The Irish Independent reports that the Presidency will cost Irish taxpayers around 500,000 euro for every day it remains at the EU helm.

The total bill will be well above 90m euro.

While around 23m euro was spent on preparations last year and 60m euro has been allocated this year - this is not the final sum as some of the Irish government departments have yet to say how much they are set to spend.

The Department of Foreign Affairs will be the biggest spender with a budget of 25 million euro for the year's events.