According to the 2022 annual reports on EU spending, published by the European Court of Auditors on Tuesday 7 May, the total amount of European funds declared as irregular was €14 billion, across all policy areas.
While the Commission records irregular expenditure accurately and quickly, the almost non-existent rate of recovery is highlighted as a major shortcoming by the Court of Auditors.
“Once the money has been paid in, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to get it back. The auditors found that it generally took between 14 and 23 months between the completion of the activities financed and a possible request for reimbursement. To this must be added a further 3 to 5 months before the funds are recovered, bearing in mind that 1 to 8% of them are simply waived”, explains the report in detail.
According to the European Court of Auditors, the proportion of irregular expenditure affecting the EU budget has increased between 2021 and 2022, from 3% to 4.2%. In 2022, the European Commission has declared that it will have recovered €195 million (€242 million in 2021).
One of the reasons for the difficulty of recovery operations is “the length of time between the discovery of a financial irregularity and the issuing of the recovery order”.
Given that the Commission directly manages only 20% of the funds in the EU budget, it remains dependent on the responsiveness of the Member States for a large proportion of recovery operations.
For the European Court of Auditors, “not recovering this money sends out the wrong signal and risks damaging the EU’s reputation”.
To ensure a better rate of recovery, particularly in the agricultural sector, the auditors recommend reducing the time taken to identify irregular expenditure, as well as the time taken to launch recovery procedures.
To see the report, go to https://aeur.eu/f/c4v (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)