European Court of Auditors warns of double funding by Brussels: 'Money from European taxpayers wasted'

luxembourg - The European Court of Auditors warns of an increasing risk that EU funds will be spent twice for the same action.

The European Court of Auditors is warning about the growing risk of double funding by the EU, where money is spent twice for the same purpose. Normally, EU member states receive subsidies once they have proven costs. However, this is not the case with the EU's coronavirus recovery fund, where member states receive subsidies for achieving targets. The Court of Auditors has discovered that there is little to no control over potential double funding from other sources. For instance, a country might have received money from a subsidy fund for poor regions for building ten wind turbines, while the construction of the same wind turbines is also a target for the subsidy fund from the coronavirus fund.

In the Czech Republic, the watchdog found a case where it was unclear if there was double funding. Seventeen schools received subsidies from two different funds for the purchase of ICT equipment.

'Double funding abuses EU resources and wastes money from European taxpayers,' said Court of Auditors member Annemie Turtelboom. The European rules explicitly prohibit double funding.