Where Are the COVID Billions? - EU Auditors Slam Lack of Transparency
It was a historic step: 577 billion euros were mobilized to help people and businesses in the wake of the pandemic. Never before had Europe collectively taken on so much debt. Yet to this day, it remains unclear exactly where the funds from the so-called RRF (Recovery and Resilience Facility) have gone. A new report by the European Court of Auditors criticizes the lack of transparency in the allocation of taxpayer money. There is a lack of “information on who ultimately benefits from RRF funds and by how much.”
Member states are required to list the 100 largest recipients of the funds. While the lists submitted so far each show 100 recipients, they rarely actually list the institutions or companies that ultimately received the money. According to the Court of Auditors, “public bodies account for more than half […] of these final recipients.” Based on the amounts recorded, as much as 80 percent of the funds ended up with government agencies.
However, the listed government agencies are rarely the actual final recipients of the funds. Rather, they are often the entities that receive the money and then contract out work to companies. “In these cases, the member states do not publish the amounts paid to contractors,” according to the Court of Auditors.
Who exactly is profiting from the 2.6 billion euros that have been channeled through the French public investment bank into green hydrogen and the “innovations” of the energy transition? Which companies actually benefited from the 15.8 million euros that the Maltese Prime Minister’s office received for the purchase of new vehicles and equipment? – Unclear.
The European Parliament has also recently criticized the lack of transparency in the allocation of COVID aid. In the so-called discharge report, the Parliament calls on the Commission to make the missing information available by the end of the year. Should this not happen, the Parliament reserves the right to take legal action against the Commission. The discharge report reviews each year whether the Commission handled European citizens’ tax money responsibly in the previous year.
Daniel Freund, rapporteur for Commission discharge:
“We’re talking about billions in taxpayer money. The fact that we still don’t know where the funds went is a scandal. The Commission must ensure that all member states publish the final recipients by the end of the year. If that does not happen, we reserve the right to take legal action. The RRF is historic, but we must ensure that it does not go down in history for the wrong reasons.”