EU Budget Under Scrutiny: Where Did the Billions Go?

The European Commission manages the largest share of the EU budget, spending almost €200 billion in taxpayers’ money in 2024. One thing is clear: whoever spends that much must face rigorous scrutiny.

What is being funded? Are the responsible commissioners following the rules? And are EU funds safe in member states – or do they end up in the pockets of corrupt networks? To get answers, the European Parliament gains access – once a year – to information and commissioners that are otherwise nearly impossible to reach. This process is called discharge.

This year, for the first time, a Green MEP led the discharge process for the Commission’s budget. That meant I got to grill the Commission with questions and take the lead in analyzing the European Court of Auditors’ reports. The goal? To check whether the Commission handled taxpayers’ money responsibly in 2024.

Today, Parliament approved the report my team and I drafted. The Commission has been granted discharge—a green light, but one with serious warnings attached. Far too often, the Commission fails to properly monitor where funds go and who manages them.

One of the most alarming cases is the COVID recovery funds. €577 billion were mobilized to help people and businesses during the pandemic – a historic move, as Europe had never taken on joint debt on this scale before. Yet to this day, many member states still lack transparency about who ultimately received these funds. We are demanding that the Commission make this information public by the end of the year. If it fails to do so, Parliament reserves the right to take legal action.

We are also urging the Commission to stop turning a blind eye to Slovakia. Prime Minister Robert Fico is dismantling anti-corruption bodies, weakening whistleblower protections, and loosening criminal law. Slovakia has become a haven for corrupt criminals. Yet EU funds continue to flow – sometimes into luxury villas owned by Fico’s allies. Parliament is calling on the Commission to penalize these violations and launch a procedure to protect the EU budget. The rule is simple: if EU funds aren’t safe, they shouldn’t be disbursed.

The same goes for incompetent commissioners. Under Hungarian Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi – a loyal ally of Viktor Orbán—numerous top positions in his directorate-general remained vacant for years between 2019 and 2024. This included departments responsible for coordinating with Ukraine – during Russia’s war of aggression. Such management failures raise serious questions. Add to that espionage allegations, and my conclusion is clear: Várhelyi must resign.

Then there’s Henrik Hololei, the man who sold Europe out for a few plane tickets. The former director-general allegedly accepted free flights and luxury trips from Qatar while his department negotiated an aviation agreement with the country. He was fired earlier this year. We believe the agreement itself must now be reviewed – and potentially renegotiated.

These past weeks as rapporteur have reinforced one lesson: the EU needs not just adequate budgets, but strong oversight. We owe that to citizens. Every euro spent in Europe belongs to them.