Brussels, 17/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - While the overall financial impact of fraud affecting EU funds decreased by 21% in 2013, the number of cases reported in EU spending increased by 30% on the previous year.
That is the conclusion that can be drawn from the 2013 annual report on protection of the European Union's financial interests and the fight against fraud published by the European Commission on Thursday 17 July. The Commission says: “This may be the result of stronger measures to detect fraud at an earlier stage, thereby reducing the overall amount of funds affected. It also may signal better reporting of fraud by some Member States.'
In 2013, 15,779 (fraudulent and non-fraudulent) irregularities were reported to the Commission, involving an overall amount of about €2.14 billion, of which about €1.76 billion concern the expenditure sectors of the EU budget. Compared to 2012, the number of irregularities increased by 17%. However, the financial amount related to the detected irregularities decreased by 36%. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of reported irregularities increased by 22%, while the related amounts increased by 48%.
Irregularities reported as fraudulent and damaging to the EU budget. In 2013, member states reported as fraudulent 1,609 irregularities involving an overall amount of €309 million in EU funds. Out of these, 25 fraudulent irregularities concerned funds managed under direct expenditure, involving €1.2 million, and eight fraudulent irregularities were reported by candidate countries and involved about €1 million. The number of fraudulent irregularities reported in 2013 increased by 30% in comparison with the previous year, while their financial impact decreased by 21%.
The member states which detected and reported the highest number of fraudulent irregularities were: Italy (302), Romania (109), Bulgaria (97), Poland (91), Denmark (66) and Greece (55). In terms of the amounts involved, the highest figures were reported by Italy (€68.5 million, €36.6 million of this in agriculture, €7.4 million in fisheries and €24.4 million in cohesion policy), Poland (€41.1 million, €35.7 million of which relating to cohesion policy) and Romania (€36.5 million).
For EU expenditure, the increase in the number of irregularities reported as fraudulent was significant, at 76%. It reflects mainly the natural resources sector (where the increase was at 175%). Increases were also seen in the cohesion (15%) and pre-accession (27%) policies. Unlike in previous years, most of the fraudulent cases reported (60%) were detected in the domain of agriculture. On the other hand, as in previous years, most of the amounts involved in these irregularities (63%) was connected with cohesion policy.
Preventive and corrective measures. In 2013, the Commission made several decisions to ensure that EU resources are spent according to the principle of sound financial management and that EU financial interests are protected. It made 217 decisions to interrupt payment (involving over €5 billion) in the cohesion policy area. Of these, 131 were still open at the end of 2013 (involving about €2 billion of interrupted payments). The Commission also made four new suspension decisions (three of these were still ongoing at the end of the year). The Commission made financial corrections of over €2.5 billion and issued recovery orders for €955 million. (LC)