What are the benefits of EU grants to the Netherlands?
It is important that European resources are spent in compliance with the rules. But even if they are, this does not mean that the money has been put to good use. Our audits between 2003 and 2016 show that the effectiveness and efficiency of European resources often remain unclear.
An audit by the Netherlands Court of Audit in 2022 found that EU grants acted as a significant boost for projects in the Netherlands. What the money was used for is also generally easy to establish. What is often unclear, however, is what the grants actually achieved in concrete terms and whether the money was used efficiently (in other words, as economically as possible).
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Between 2003 and 2016 the Court of Audit published a series of reports on the financial management of EU grants in the Netherlands and other member states. The subjects covered in these EU-trend reports included audits of the extent of insight into the results achieved by EU grants. These audits found that it was often unclear as to whether EU money had been spent both effectively and efficiently. At a project level, we also conducted various audits of grants’ effectiveness. An audit of various smaller projects in 2015 found a great deal of variation in the extent to which EU grants were used effectively. This was also insofar as we were able to form an opinion. Our EU Trend Report of January 2016 emphasised the importance of gaining insight into the effectiveness and efficiency of the use of EU funds and the results these funds achieve. We write in the report that, in our opinion, a good explanation of the outcomes of EU programmes would strengthen citizens’ support for the EU and provide an opportunity for a rational debate on the distribution of funds.
A wide-ranging 2022 investigation by the Netherlands Court of Audit on the added value of EU grants in the Netherlands concluded that EU grants in the Netherlands were significant incentives. EU grants in the Netherlands enable projects to be set up and/or carried out earlier and to higher quality. This was the conclusion of a survey of about 1,300 grant recipients and about 500 rejected grant applicants.
However, this audit, too, concluded that insight into project results was limited owing to the poor quality of impact indicators and the fact that mid-term evaluations were carried out too early to draw any conclusions on results and final evaluations too late to adapt project implementation. ESF grants were a favourable exception in that more insight was available into their results. Another important conclusion from the audit was that better substantiation of the allocation of EU grants to programme components in the Netherlands would generate more added value.
In 2019 we audited the effectiveness of agricultural grants received by the Netherlands. This audit found that these grants were, to a certain degree, used effectively.
The Netherlands received around €5 billion from this fund between 2014 and 2020. This accounted for approximately two-thirds of the Netherlands' total EU receipts.
We used data from Statistics Netherlands and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) to establish the extent to which income support provided to farmers from the European agricultural guarantee fund (EAGF) achieved its objective of ensuring a reasonable standard of living for them.
We reported that there were signs that this income support worked to some extent in ensuring that farmers maintained a reasonable standard of living. Without this support, farmers’ gross operating income would be less than the statutory minimum wage in just over half of the cases we looked at. With this support, just over one third of farmers fell into this category.
We also saw, however, that over one third of the EU income support went to farmers whose gross annual income was at least twice the national average (after receiving this support).
The figure below, taken from our audit report, shows the proportion of farmers by income bracket with and without income support in 2014, and with income support based on acreage (based on the modified system launched in 2019).
Data in a table
| More than or equal to twice the average income | Average income to twice the average income (€66,000) | Minimum wage to average income (€33,000) | Less than the minimum wage (€19,253) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Farmers with income from operations without income support | 15 | 19 | 14 | 52 |
| Farmers with income from operations with income support 2014 | 24 | 26 | 14 | 36 |
| Breakdown of income support across income brackets 2014 | 37 | 30 | 12 | 21 |
| Farmers with income from operations with income support. System since 2019 | 23 | 27 | 14 | 36 |
| Breakdown of income support across income brackets since 2019 | 34 | 29 | 12 | 24 |
More information
- EU Trend Report 2015 including audit on effectiveness of EU-grants (10-02-2015)
- EU Trend Report 2016 including an analysis of the importance of insight in added value of EU (27-01-2016)
- Added Value of EU Grants in the Netherlands - Report of the Netherlands Court of Audit (18-10-2022)
- Report on the National Declaration 2019, including an audit on the effectiveness of EU income support for farmers - Report of the Netherlands Court of Audit (15-10-2019)
The European Commission has long sought to sharpen the focus of EU funding toward results. In 2015, the Juncker Commission launched an initiative called ‘EU Budget Focused on Results’.
More recently, the Von der Leyen Commission has included new provisions in line with the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027 to ensure that EU funding focuses more clearly on results.
More details of these new provisions can be found in the European Commission’s performance framework for the same period.
The European Commission named the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) as an important example. Payment from the fund to the member states are coupled directly to the achievement of milestones and goals in the member states’ recovery and resilience plans. An October 2023 report by the European Court of Auditors stated that substantial improvements were still needed before there was good insight into the results realised with the RRF funds.
The European Commission has an open data platform containing data on EU funding under shared management. It confirms that limited information is available on the results ultimately achieved through EU funding. For instance, although it shows that a bridge has been built with EU grants, no information is given on whether the bridge is actually used or how it has boosted the economic development of the local region.
In a 2021 audit of what programmes funded by EU grants had achieved, the European Court of Auditors also concluded that although the information on results achieved had improved slightly in the past few years, there was still considerable potential for further improvements. A subsequent audit by the European Court of Auditors in 2022 of what EU grants had achieved adopted a slightly different approach by looking at how the European Commission funded and monitored EU objectives in policy areas such as climate, digitisation and biodiversity. This time, too, it concluded that information provided on the results of EU grants continued to be insufficient.
In 2023 the European Court of Auditors published an analysis of the Commission’s 2022 annual management and performance report on the results achieved by the EU budget. This identified scope for improving the quality of performance data.
More information
- 2021-2027 long-term EU budget & NextGenerationEU
- Communication on the EU budget performance framework 2021-2027 (08-06-2021)
- Database European Commission on cohesion funds
- Report of European Court of Auditors on the performance of the EU budget (15-11-2021)
- Annual report on the performance of the EU budget – status at the end of 2021, European Court of Auditors (14-11-2022)
- Review 06/2023: The Commission’s 2022 annual management and performance report for the EU budget, European Commission (2023)
- The Recovery and Resilience Facility’s performance and monitoring framework (European Court of Auditors 2023)
European Court of Auditors
- Annual reports on financial year 2022 (2023)
- Conflict of interest in EU cohesion and Agricultural spending (2023)
- Synergies between Horizon 2020 and European Structural and Investment Funds (2022)
- ESF support to combat long-term unemployment (2021)
- Performance-based financing in cohesion policy (2021)
- Sustainable Finance EU (2021)
- Interreg Cooperation (2021)
- Special Report 25/2021: ESF support to combat long-term unemployment: Measures need to be better targeted, tailored and monitored
National Audit Office of Estonia
National Audit Office of Finland
National Audit Office of Slovenia
- Monitoring effectiveness of projects that received European funds for rural development (2019)
- Absorption of the European Cohesion Policy Funds for Dynamic and competitive entrepreneurship for green economic growth (2018)
National Audit Office of the Czech Republic
- Audit No 22/04: Billions of EU subsidies have contributed to improving the quality of healthcare in the regions. However, some hospitals purchased unnecessarily expensive or redundant equipment (2022)
- EU report 2023: Report on EU Financial Management in the Czech Republic (2024)
- EU report 2022: Report on EU Financial Management in the Czech Republic (2023)
National Audit Office of Sweden
Weblog post by college member Ewout Irrgang, 14-10-2020