The European Commission was called upon on Monday 4 July to step up the fight against fraud affecting Common Agricultural Policy spending.
“We found that the Commission had reacted to cases of CAP aid fraud, but had not been sufficiently proactive in addressing the impact of the risk of illegal land grabbing on CAP payments, in monitoring the anti-fraud measures adopted by Member States, and in exploiting the possibilities offered by new technologies”, reads a report published by the EU Court of Auditors.
“The main message of our report is that the EU needs to be more proactive in the fight against fraud in agricultural spending”, the member of the Court responsible for the report, Nikolaos Milionis, told the press.
The Court noted that the risk of fraud is higher in areas of expenditure with more complex eligibility conditions. “We are talking about some rural development measures and market measures. Some cases of fraud involved beneficiaries who had not disclosed their links with other companies and who should not have received aid for small businesses because they were in fact part of a larger structure. In other cases, beneficiaries have falsified documents or simulated activities in order to benefit from CAP aid”, he explained.
The Court examined the risk of illegal land grabbing. Since CAP control systems make it difficult to overestimate the eligible area, fraudsters often target land without an active owner. “We found that DG AGRI did not cover land grabbing sufficiently”, Nikolaos Milionis regretted.
The Commission has encouraged the use of new technologies to automate controls. It has also developed its own risk calculation tool, Arachne, to help Member States prevent fraud.
The use of these technologies is voluntary and “Member States have been unresponsive”, the Court laments.
Artificial intelligence and megadata are promising technologies in the fight against fraud, “but Member States are struggling to exploit them and the Commission is starting to promote them”, the report also says.
The Commission carried out its last analysis of the risk of fraud in the CAP in 2016 and plans a new one before January 2023 and the entry into force of the new CAP, the Court of Auditors says.
From 2018 to 2020, in the EU27, direct payments increased to an average of €38.5 billion per year, while spending on market measures and rural development averaged €2.7 billion and €13.1 billion respectively. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)