A relationship can survive a surprisingly large number of rows; the danger sign to watch for is the silence of contempt. Relations between the institutions of the European Union and the taxpayers who fork out for their salaries, perks, offices and activities are close to that point.

Time was when it was considered shocking that the European Court of Auditors had been forced to qualify the European Commission's opaque and unreliable annual accounts. But after 13 consecutive years of ECA audits studded with instances of negligence, actual or presumed fraud, budgetary black holes and a culture of lax accountability, the annual conclusion that it is impossible for the auditors to vouch for the “legality and regularity” of much EU spending has lost its power to shock. The Commission has become synonymous in voters' minds with waste, financial abuses and official arrogance. Resentment tinged with contempt for Brussels would have doomed the Lisbon treaty, had EU governments been so rash as to put it to the test of national referendums.

The European Parliament, supposedly the elected watchdog over unelected Euro-officialdom, has never has much by way of identity; most people have no idea where it meets or what it does - as to the latter, the more honest MEPs would admit to a certain confusion. Fewer people still could tell you the name of their representatives on the European stage. Yet, in Britain at least, two words instantly identify the Parliament in the public mind. The words are “gravy train”, and it is the fault of Members of the European Parliament that this is so. MEPs' salaries are paid by national governments, but expenses are paid from the Parliament budget. They have voted themselves outrageously excessive allowances for constituency offices, for parliamentary staff - a cool £100 million a year - for pensions and even for just turning up at the door. They have shamelessly milked the system. And they have hidden these abuses from public view, piously citing EU data protection laws to justify their rejection of calls by the EU Ombudsman to make all financial records public.

Some of the more notorious of these perks - such as reimbursement for first-class air travel to Brussels and Strasbourg while actually using bucket shops - are due to be abolished next year. But the reforms leave untouched rackets whereby MEPs line their pockets or those of their parties with money filched from staff and other office expenses, some even paying personal pension contributions out of staffing budgets.

The scale of these abuses has been made public by the Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, who has called on Olaf, the EU's anti-fraud office, to investigate what he describes as “massive embezzlement” after being given, as a member of the Parliament's Budgetary Committee, a supervised peek at an internal random audit report. The report names no names. Even so, he was not allowed to take notes, and was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement to ensure his silence. Instead he has denounced the culture of secrecy and demanded not only an Olaf investigation - which could as easily bury evidence of wrongdoing as expose it - but the immediate publication of the report and the naming and prosecution of MEPs against whom there is evidence. These are obvious steps. They are the barest minimum required for the EU to be taken seriously on this issue. That the chances of them being taken appear close to nil speaks volumes.