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EC asks why EU funding helped pay for Italian Elton John gig
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 15 November 2010
The European Commission says it wants to know how approximately 600,000 euros of European Union money was spent on an Elton John concert held in Naples last year. An EC spokesman says he thinks an Italian regional authority breached rules in using European funding for such a venture, while one albeit slightly controversial right wing Euro MP from the north of the country, Mario Borghezio, says the gig was a “shameful” misuse of EU funds.
So called regional development funding comes from the EU but is distributed to projects, which will help develop local economies, by regional authorities within member states, in this case the Campania regional authority in southern Italy.
Cultural initiatives are eligible for such funding, but the EC’s regional policy spokesman Ton va Lierop says he doubts an Elton John gig would fulfil EU set criteria, even though organisers of the Piedigrotta festival, of which the concert was part, claim it helped promote Naples, and brought in new custom for local businesses.
Van Lierpo told the BBC: “We’re asking the managing authority about this. We want to know why they think it fits in with the rules”.
