OLAF: €1.8bn of EU funding wrongly spent

Anti-fraud office says that 10,332 cases of irregularities were reported in 2010.

The second highest number of reported irregular payments were found in payments from the EU’s agricultural funds. More than 1,800 cases of irregularities were reported to the Commission, involving €131m, of which €69m is suspected to have involved fraud.

Pre-accession aid to candidate countries, including funds which were paid to Bulgaria and Romania in 2010, was the third largest part of the EU’s budget affected by irregularities.

“The highest risk area continues to be cohesion policy,” said Ilett, adding that there was a rising trend of irregularities affecting cohesion funds. He said the increase in irregularities was because the number of cohesion policy projects being carried out was increasing as the current 2007-13 multiannual spending period comes to a close.
Ilett added, however, that the amount of recovered funds was also rising because of much better reporting. The Commission now obliges member states to submit reports via an online irregularities management system (IMS) that makes spotting potential fraud easier and faster to control. But France, Spain and Ireland have still to implement the new reporting system, Illet said.

Commission report says that €611m has so far been returned by member states to the EU budget because of irregular and fraudulent cohesion policy payments.

The Commission’s annual report on the EU’s financial interests and the fight against fraud is required under EU law.