Have you ever wondered whether EU money is legitimately flowing into this or that project in your neighborhood? If you have any doubts, this may be one of the cases in which funds from Brussels have not been spent properly. Because they are quite common.
For the 2025 financial year, the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg comes to the conclusion in its new report that an estimated 3.8 percent of expenditure was incorrect. With expenditure amounting to around 176.3 billion euros, this corresponds to a total of around 6.7 billion euros in which EU regulations were violated.
Violations of the regulations for the award of public contracts and the financing of ineligible projects occurred particularly frequently.
Violations in Corona development funds
The auditors also examined irregular payouts from the Corona development fund, which totals around 650 billion euros. In order to receive the aid, member countries must submit a plan with concrete investment and reform projects. The money should only be paid once promised milestones in the implementation of planned reforms and investments have been achieved.
According to the auditors, out of 37 payments from this pot to EU countries in 2025, nine did not comply with the applicable regulations and conditions. For example, procurement regulations were violated and funds flowed before the corresponding goals were achieved.
This is interesting in view of the current budget negotiations, according to the Court of Auditors. There is currently a debate in Brussels about the new long-term EU budget for 2028 to 2034. Similar to the Corona recovery fund, the Commission's proposal for the trillion-dollar budget also envisages linking funds more closely to reforms and specific goals.
Goals manipulated to receive funding
The Luxembourg auditors also discovered cases in which the pre-determined targets had simply been ignored. "Basically, the ambitions in the plans are scaled down to essentially ensure that the money can be paid out," complained the President of the ECA, Tony Murphy.
In Luxembourg, for example, a telemedicine application that was actually planned for all residents was only developed for a small group of people. The council simply approved this change. “The goal was subsequently revised downwards in order to achieve it,” criticized the German member of the Court of Auditors, Daniel Caspary.
According to the Court of Auditors, the estimated error rate is “not a measure of fraud, inefficiency or waste.” It is an estimate of the amounts that were not used in accordance with EU and national rules.
High expenses often go hand in hand with high debts. According to the Court of Auditors, that of the EU could rise to up to one trillion euros by 2027. In the future, almost every tenth euro of the European budget will go towards paying off debts, said Caspary. In the medium term, he therefore expects a significant increase in national contributions, "particularly for Germany as the largest net contributor."
