Romania has topped a league table of EU fraud investigations, it emerged last night.

One in four investigations completed by the European Union’s fraud watchdog related to the Eastern European country.

The top four countries on the list were all from Eastern Europe. Behind Romania came Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, followed by Italy. The UK was bottom of the list.

OLAF, the fraud watchdog, called on the EU to try and recover more than 900million euros (£650million) of taxpayers’ money lost from its budget to suspected fraud last year. That is more than double the previous year’s amount.

OLAF, the fraud watchdog, called on the EU to try and recover more than 900million euros (£650million) of taxpayers’ money lost from its budget to suspected fraud last year

Its annual report also revealed it received a record number of fraud allegations last year.

Officials claimed that did not show fraud had risen, but only that people were more confident in coming forward to report their concerns.

But critics said the figures represented the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of vast sums lost to fraud.

Ukip MEP Jonathan Arnott said: ‘These shocking figures show that Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria are the worst countries for such illegal behaviour and I’m glad to say that the UK is at the bottom of the list.

‘The EU Commission’s financial control is useless and tens of billions of pounds are lost through mismanagement and dishonesty,’ he said.

‘This lack of control makes it much easier for fraudsters to get their sticky fingers on the money - a staggering £55million a day of which comes from the UK.’

‘Every day we find more and more reasons why we urgently need a referendum so we can escape the tentacles of the EU and get back our sovereignty and keep our taxpayers money in our own country.’

The EU fraud regulator completed 156 investigations into the use of European Union funds in 2014.

Of those, 36 related to Romania, 13 Hungary, 11 Bulgaria 8 the Czech Republic and seven Italy.

The fraud watchdog said it had reclaimed only 206.5 million euros in 2014, the report said. Investigators said there was often a lag of several years between recommendations and money being repaid.

Officials claimed that did not show fraud had risen, but only that people were more confident in coming forward to report their concerns

Olaf, the European Anti-Fraud Office investigates both fraudulent use of EU funds and wrongdoing within EU institutions received a record 1,417 allegations of fraud last year. It also looks at scams involving customs duty.

Around half of the 900million euros related to structural funds – money handed out by the EU to poorer regions.

But some 174million euros related to EU aid payments. Some £75million relate to the Common Agricultural Policy.

The watchdog can recommend individual countries should pursue criminal prosecutions in individual cases.

But worryingly, over the last seven years, only 53 per cent of recommendations led to criminal investigations.

If it finds evidence of abuse, OLAF recommends that the European Commission, other EU agencies or national authorities seek to recover funds suspected of being misspent or snatched from the EU budget through customs frauds.

Over the last seven years only 53 per cent of OLAF recommendations resulted in actual indictments in member states.