The European Commission and the European Court of Auditors play are central to the accountability for and audit of EU funds.
European Commission
The European Commission prepares both annual and periodic reports to account for expenditure from the EU budget. Its Annual Management and Performance Report (AMPR) is generally positive about the results achieved, stating in 2024 that the EU budget continues to deliver its priorities and that ‘effective tools ensure that the EU budget is well managed and safeguarded’. The Commission also reported in 2024 that the error rate in payments from all expenditure headings with the exception of cohesion was below 2%. The error rate in cohesion payments was 2.9%. The Commission also presented the error rate on programme closure (after adjustments): the error rate in all headings was below 2% (AMPR 2024, volume 1, p. 22). The Commission accordingly concludes that robust internal controls are in place to protect the EU budget.
As part of the discharge procedure, the Commission prepares ‘Integrated Financial and Accountability Reporting’ with all relevant information.
European Court of Auditors
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) is less positive in its opinions on expenditure from the EU budget. For the sixth year in succession, its 2024 report the ECA includes an adverse opinion on budget expenditure. The overall estimated level of error in 2024 was 3.6%. This is below the level in 2023 (5.6%) but still higher than the threshold of 2%. The level of error in the past 5 years is shown in the figure below.
Source: ECA Annual Reports on the implementation of the EU budget for the 2024 financial year
In view of the many errors in budget expenditure, the ECA has never issued an unqualified opinion on the implementation of the EU budget.
The ECA explains in its 2024 annual report that its more negative opinion of the use of EU funds is due to the Commission counting only errors that are due to acts or omissions by economic operators where there are legal grounds to impose financial corrections and, unlike the ECA, not including errors made by national and regional administrations or by the Commission itself that are detrimental to the EU budget (p. 43).
The ECA gave a qualified opinion on expenditure from the RRF corona recovery fund. Its opinion was again stricter than the Commission’s opinion that payment requests were legal and regular.