EU Buyers Get A Lowly Pass Grade
The EU Commission spends approximately €120 billion annually. Yet, its auditors report ‘material errors’ in respect of categories amounting to 53% of that expenditure.
What is even more surprising is that the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has not given what it considers to be a clean bill of health in respect of most categories of spending for over 15 years!
Material Level of Error Reported
The ECA raises a red flag against spending where it records a material, or unacceptably high level of error (over 2% of total expenditure in a category) in respect of what it calls the legality and regularity of spending. This occurs where beneficiaries over claim, or do not meet the necessary obligations / requirements to receive EU aid, or grants.
The findings are the result of an analysis and testing of internal systems and controls (both at European Commission and member state level), as well as the testing of a statistically representative sample of underlying transactions.
Overly Complex Rules Thwart Buyers
Ironically, the overly complex nature of rules and regulations is blamed by the ECA for the high level of error reported. The end result is that member states had to recover and repay approximately 1.44% of total allocations from the EU in 2008.
Click here to read the European Court of Auditors Report.
Peter Viljoen: 
StartupSandy: 
the Senator: 
Martin Lindeskog: 
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