The European Commission’s monitoring of compliance with EU rules governing public procurement and the granting of State aid under the post-Covid-19 Next Generation EU Recovery Plan is “still not up to scratch”, warned the European Court of Auditors in a special report published on Monday 10 March.
The weaknesses found in the checks carried out by the five Member States (Croatia, Spain, France, Italy and the Czech Republic) audited by the Court are more marked in the area of public procurement than in that of State aid. The European auditors point to problems concerning “the content, quality and timing” of the checks carried out at national level.
Pointing to “significant weaknesses”, the European auditors found, for example, no evidence of the existence of controls or audits on public procurement procedures in France and noted the existence of insufficient audits in the Czech Republic, which do not cover all the risks associated with public procurement (artificial allotment of contracts, modification of contractual elements).
According to the Court, this is because the Member States have not received detailed guidance from the Commission on how to monitor compliance with European rules.
Furthermore, the auditors note that the corrective measures taken are often insufficient. France and Spain are not recovering the sums due and, when the other countries do so, the funds recovered are neither paid back to the EU budget nor deducted from subsequent payments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the budgetary instrument of the European Recovery Plan.
This situation is due to the initial design of the RRF, which links the payment of European funds to compliance with targets in terms of reforms and/or investments. The Court warns, however, that European aid payments may be made in full even if the rules governing public procurement or State aid have not been complied with.
“With hundreds of billions of euros still to be invested by the end of 2026 [under the RRF], we hope that our audit will contribute to protecting the EU’s financial interests more effectively”, said Jorg Kristijan Petrovič, the member of the Court responsible for the audit, in a statement.
To see the Court of Auditors’ report: https://aeur.eu/f/fue (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)