On Thursday 16 May 2019, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) will publish a special report on the actions of managing authorities in Member States to prevent, detect and respond to fraud in EU cohesion spending.

ABOUT THE AUDIT

The ECA assessed whether managing authorities have properly met their responsibilities at each stage of the anti-fraud management process, from prevention and detection to response. To this end, they visited seven Member States: Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Greece, Latvia, Romania and Spain.

Although Member States have made some improvements as regards risk assessment and fraud prevention, the report is expected to highlight several weaknesses in their efforts to tackle fraud in cohesion spending. In particular, the auditors are expected to single out the absence of significant progress towards fraud detection, as well as shortcomings in their reporting and response measures. They will make a number of recommendations to achieve better results.

ABOUT THE TOPIC

EU cohesion policy accounts for a third of the EU budget. It is structured around three of the European Structural and Investment Funds: the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the European Social Fund. Member States are responsible for preventing, detecting and correcting fraudulent irregularities and for recovering funds unduly paid.

The ECA’s special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes or management topics related to specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.