​​In a relatively short period of time, the European Commission set up a control system of checks for the EU’s main pandemic recovery fund, the €724 billion Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The European Court of Auditors has examined the design of this control system and found an assurance and accountability gap in protecting the EU’s financial interests. Member states are obliged to check that RRF-funded investment projects comply with EU and national rules, but the Commission has little verified information through its own work as to whether and how these national checks are carried out. Without assurance that these rules are complied with, there is a lack of accountability at EU level.

The Commission channels money through the RRF in a new way: it makes payments to EU countries after it is certain that they have fulfilled the objectives agreed upfront in their national recovery plans by achieving milestones and targets. For this purpose, the Commission has put in place an extensive set of checks to verify the data that countries provide to prove that they have achieved them. However, for RRF-funded investment projects, compliance with the relevant EU and national rules is not a condition for payment, unlike for other EU funding programmes. Nor is compliance with these rules covered by the Commission’s checks of Member States’ payment requests.

“Citizens will only trust new ways of EU funding if they can be sure that their money is being spent properly,” said ECA President Tony Murphy. “Currently, there is a gap in terms of the assurance the Commission can provide for the EU’s main pandemic recovery fund and a lack of accountability at EU level.”