Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The EU’s financial watchdog has warned there is an increasing risk that EU money could be handed out twice for the same action.
This is the worrying conclusion of a report published on 22 October by the European Court of Auditors.
The Court said that there were unprecedented amounts of money available under the EU’s post-pandemic recovery programme.
They say this has seen the first wide-scale use of a new funding mechanism that is not based on actual costs incurred and there was a risk this can overlap with financing from the traditional EU budget.
However, the control mechanisms in place are not sufficient to properly mitigate the increased risk of double funding, said the Court in its new report.
The auditors say that the €648 billion COVID recovery fund – in the form of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), established in 2021 – also finances similar actions in areas such as transport and energy infrastructure.
“Furthermore, the RRF represents the first ever large-scale rollout of EU financial support with no link to actual costs, thereby increasing the risk that the same item could receive EU money twice,” says the report.
Shortly after the ECA’s audit report was completed, the European Commission revealed that it had identified the first two potential cases of double funding involving RRF money.
Annemie Turtelboom, the ECA member responsible for the audit, said, “Double funding is a misuse of EU funds and a waste of EU taxpayers’ money.”
“And yet, the safeguards in place are largely insufficient”, added Turtelboom.
“The RRF funding model was supposed to bring simplification. But simplification should not come at the cost of weakening the protection of the EU’s financial interests.”
The report states, “As far as the European Commission is concerned, the assurance it provides about the absence of double funding is based on limited evidence.”
