Accidentally overpaid EU staff told they can keep the money

Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse/Empics Entertainment

Nothing is ever straightforward with the set up of the European Union so even a simple thing like trying to reclaim overpayments to diplomatic staff becomes impossible in this bureaucratic nightmare.

But that's okay because there is always some ludicrous explanation as to why EU officials just can't simply do the right thing by the taxpayers who fund the lives of these gravy train season ticketholders.

Thanks to an incredibly complicated system involving local weightings, EU diplomatic staff who are posted abroad – representing what country exactly? – have their salaries adjusted from time to time to take into account changes in the cost of living compared to back in Brussels.