Because transparency rules are weak, it remains difficult to tell what €577bn in Covid-spending has achieved and who ultimately received it.
Wester van Gaal
The EU’s €577bn pandemic recovery fund is riddled with transparency gaps that make it hard to tell where the money actually ends up, the European Court of Auditors warned.
There is a “huge lack of transparency,” said Ivana Maletić, lead author of a new report, in a press briefing on Wednesday (6 May).
Set up in 2021, the so-called Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) was meant to help member states rebuild after Covid — with a focus on green and digital investment.
By January 2026, €577bn of the €723.8bn pot had been committed.
But because transparency rules are weak, it remains largely unclear what the money has achieved and who ultimately received it.
Only the 100 largest
Most payments can be traced to the final user, but member states are not required to share actual amounts spent on individual measures.
Some countries, including Austria, Estonia, France and Spain, have created online dashboards or maps showing funded projects.
But even there, information on final beneficiaries or investment results is lacking, according to the auditors.
Another problem identified by the auditors is the fact that member states are only required to publish the 100 largest recipients of pandemic-era funding.
In practice, these are usually public bodies such as ministries, municipalities, or state-owned companies such as railways, which account for more than half of the listed recipients and around 80 percent of reported amounts.
Those public bodies then pass funds on to thousands of private companies, NGOs, banks, and investment funds.
But these fall outside of the list. And because the EU Commission is not obligated to collect this data itself, even in cases where member states have it, the information is hard to access.
“We need information on all the recipients. Not only we, but citizens, journalists, everybody who would like to see how money is spent,” said Maletić.
The commission however, in a written response shared with EUobserver, said it “could not endorse” the ECA’s recommendations.
When asked whether it would push member states to provide more information on recipients beyond the top 100, commission spokesperson Maciej Berestecki said it had “issued guidance” to help member states collect the data and held “dedicated meetings” on the issue.
“In relation to data on actual costs, there is no legal basis for the Commission to request or analyse such national data,” he added.
Hard-baked
Some of the transparency problems identified by the auditors are hard-baked into the fund’s design.
Covid-era financing was put together in haste to help governments kickstart the economy, which had largely come to a halt.
Unlike traditional EU funding mechanisms, which typically reimburse incurred costs, the RRF disbursed money based on performance.
National authorities report on milestones and targets to unlock payments from Brussels, but not on the full chain of spending and financial flows.
The commission now wants to use the model as a template for the next seven-year EU budget.
“The approach has proven effective,” the commission told EUobserver in a response. “It ensures EU funding is directed toward tangible outcome.”
