Auditors: EU Budget Spending Improving

BRUSSELS (AP) — EU auditors say management of the 27-nation bloc's multibillion-euro (dollar) budget is improving.

The EU's Court of Auditors says, however, there are still too many errors in some programs.

It noted accounting problems for the aid spent in the bloc's poorer regions in the EU's 2008 budget. The auditors say money was spent on programs even though they did not meet set-out conditions.

The total EU budget was euro116.5 billion ($175 billion) last year.

The annual auditors' report released Tuesday gave a clean bill of health to farm aid for the first time in at least four decades. Agriculture spending has for years been plagued by fraud and mismanagement by member states.