The European Commission does not have a “global and updated strategic approach” to its financial support for third countries aimed at strengthening nuclear safety, and does not ensure rigorous monitoring. This is the conclusion reached by the European Court of Auditors in a report published on Wednesday 4 March.
It pointed out that the EU had provided around €600 million in grants to partner countries since 2014 under the last two Multiannual Financial Frameworks, in addition to a €300 million Euratom loan specifically for Ukraine, to be disbursed between 2017 and 2021, to improve the safety of its nuclear power plants.
The auditors’ analysis focused in particular on the allocation of European financial aid between 2014 and 2024, the monitoring of the actions financed, and the results achieved in improving nuclear safety in Armenia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
In addition to a lack of strategy, the Court criticises the lack of transparency in the actions funded, highlighting the absence of scoring or ranking of proposals received from third countries. Delays and sometimes cost overruns for activities financed, such as construction work, add to the grievances.
The report also considers that the European Commission could have done more to monitor the management of funded activities. The Court uses the example of the €300 million loan to Ukraine, which was disbursed “without any assurance that the funds would be used exclusively to finance programme-related expenditure incurred and paid for by the borrower”.
The European Commission welcomes the recommendations. The Court recommends, as a matter of priority, that a comprehensive and updated strategy be drawn up by the end of 2028, identifying the areas in which the added value of EU action would be greatest, as well as the objectives it intends to achieve and the instruments it plans to use.
Before then, the Court would like the Commission to base its selection of cooperation proposals on relevant criteria defined in advance (urgency and scale of the risk, added value of EU action, maturity of the proposed actions, etc.) by the end of 2027.
It also calls on the Commission to establish, from the outset, mitigating conditions to reduce delays and cost overruns during the implementation of actions.
In response, the Commission said it endorsed these recommendations and would take note of the proposals as part of the legislative process underway for the next Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034 (MFF).
To see the report: https://aeur.eu/f/l0f (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)