Between 2003 and 2016 the Court of Audit issued a series of reports on the financial management of EU funds in the Netherlands and other EU member states. These EU Trend Reports considered national governments’ insight into the results achieved with EU grants. They revealed that there was often no insight into the effectiveness and efficiency of EU funds. 

We also carried out studies of the outcomes of EU grants applied in the Netherlands. In 2015, one such study of several smaller projects concluded that a convincing answer to the question of what EU programmes deliver strengthened public support for the EU and enabled well-informed debates on the use of EU funds.

A wide-ranging 2022 audit on the added value of EU grants in the Netherlands found that the availability of EU funds acted as a significant incentive. Grants enabled projects to be launched and/or add greater value and be carried out sooner than would have been the case without EU funding. This finding was the outcome of a survey of some 1,300 grant recipients and 500 rejected grant applications.

The limited insight Dutch authorities have into the actual effects of the various EU funds has several causes:

  • There are weaknesses in the indicators set in the funded programmes to measure and monitor results:
    • Most of the indicators in funded programmes are performance indicated. They provide an insight into performance but not into outcomes (what does performance achieve?). 
    • Where outcome indicators are used, they inadequately explain the relationship between the measures taken and the social outcomes. 
    • Achievement of the indicators’ targets shows a very mixed picture. All the funds had targets that were only partially achieved at best. Some targets were significantly exceeded. As the relative importance of the indicators for each fund was not weighted, it was uncertain how much progress a programme had made. 
    • Nearly all the indicators set for funded programmes in the Netherlands had been set by the EU. The use of common indicators enables the Commission to track progress across the member states. However, common indicators are not always appropriate to measure outcomes in a Dutch setting.
    • The Dutch authorities make little use of additional national indicators that would provide more insight into the results actually achieved.
  • Although the Netherlands carries out the mid-term and final evaluations required by the EU, their findings are suboptimal for two reasons:
    • Mid-term evaluations are carried out too early to be able to say anything about outcomes. Programme are just getting under way and projects have yet to be completed. Substantive revision of the programmes therefore cannot be based on mid-term evaluations.
    • Final evaluations are not made until several years after a programme has been rounded off, long after the start of a new programming period. Final evaluations are therefore too late to be of any benefit to new programmes. 

It emerged from our 21022 audit that the European Social Fund (Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment) had a better understanding of the outcomes of EU funding because it carried out more than just the required evaluations.

Outcome of agriculture grants: farm income support

Our 2019 Report on the National Declaration considered the effectiveness of agriculture grants in the Netherlands. The audit concluded that the grants were effective to a certain degree. In 2014-2020, the Netherlands received approximately 55 billion from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund. These funds were good for about two-thirds of the Netherlands’ total receipts from the EU.

With the aid of data from Statistics Netherland and information from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, we examined whether farm income support from the Agricultural Guarantee Fund me the aim of providing farmers with a reasonable standard of living. Without income support, gross farm income would have been less than the statutory minimum wage in just over half of the cases examined, and in more than a third of the cases it was even with income support from the EU.

We also found that over a third of EU income support was paid to farmers who earned at least twice the national average (after receipt of income support). The following figure from our audit report shows the percentage of farmers per income category with and without income support in 2014 and with income support based on farm size (under the amended system as from 2019).

With income support, gross income of 36% of farmers was lower than the statutory minimum wage

Effect of agricultural grants: Eco scheme

In Focus on dairy farming grants in the Netherlands of June 2024, we investigated how European and national grants were awarded to dairy farmers and how they were applied for nature, the environment and the climate. The introduction of the eco-scheme under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2023 marked a change in dairy famers’ financial situation. In comparison with previous years, in 2023 fewer grants were awarded in the form of income support and more to support sustainability measures. On average, farmers with a gold eco-medal received a total of €460 per hectare. Eco-medals are awarded in light of the measures farmers take to make their farms more sustainable. Dairy farmers without an eco-medal received on average €270 per hectare.

Eco-scheme prompts change in dairy farming grants

Based on a sample, our audit found that dairy farmers with a gold medal sored better than other farmers on indicators set by Wageningen Economic Research (WEcR) to measure farm sustainability. Most dairy farmers who received a gold medal in 2023 ranked among the farms that scored better on sustainability indicators. However, 42% of the dairy farmers with a gold medal had a relatively low score on the sustainability indicators. A gold medal therefore does not automatically mean that farms will have a high score on WEcR’s indicators.

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