Deficiencies in the Use of European Funds

Several EU member countries have inappropriately used almost 7 billion Euros from the expenditure budget last year, reads the annual report of the European Court of Auditors.

Corina Cristea, 06.11.2014, 13:51

Almost seven billion Euros, which is 4.7% of the expenditure budget last year were spent inappropriately by some EU member countries, reads the annual report of the European Court of Auditors. According to the document, many errors have been discovered in the agricultural field, and Romania is among the countries where such flaws were found. The same report reads that the funds in question were not used in keeping with the legal provisions in force, but that there is not evidence of fraud. The fields were most errors were found are regional policy, transport and energy, rural development, the environment, fishing and health-care, as well as the programs implemented in agriculture.

The document shows that many of the errors found in agriculture were mostly generated by inaccurate payment statements or requests submitted by beneficiaries, the most common error being the incorrect declaration of agricultural areas.”

The Radio Romania correspondent in Brussels has details:

“For instance, with regard to agriculture, it was discovered that errors occurred in Germany, Ireland, Greece, France, Poland and Romania, because some plots of land, declared as permanent pastures and for which money was allocated, were in fact covered in vegetation that was not eligible for funding and should have been subtracted from the areas for which funding was requested. Also, cases of failure to observe the environmental requirements were also discovered in countries such as Italy, Romania, Poland, Hungary and the Netherlands. The Court’s analysis of the control systems in the field of rural development revealed control deficiencies with regard to eligibility requirements or the risk of double funding in six of the eight countries examined, namely Germany, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Malta and Romania.”

“There has to be more careful management and control of EU funds” Court of Auditors President Vitor Caldeira said. “ If European Union citizens do not have a clear perception of the added value of EU spending, we will not have their trust”, Caldeira also said.

On the other hand, the Court hailed the European Commission’s efforts to correct the errors and recover the funds, saying that without these corrections, the overall rate of error would have been 6.2% of the total spending, instead of 4.7%. This report, which the European Court of Auditors sends to the 28 EU member states, to inform them about the problems discovered by experts, comes at a time when Brussels is faced with growing pressure from the Member States to cut on spending.

(Translated by Mihaela Ignatescu)