Executive summary

• Author: European Court of Auditors
• Pages: 4-5

4

Executive summary

I EU legislation defines fraud as a deliberate infringement that is, or could be,

prejudicial to the EU budget. It is the joint responsibility of the EU and the Member

States to counter fraud and any other illegal activities, such as corruption, affecting the

EU’s financial interests. Between 2013 and 2017, the Commission and the Member

States identified more than 4 000 potentially fraudulent irregularities. The EU support

affected by these irregularities amounted to almost €1.5 billion, 72 % of which

concerned EU cohesion policy. In this field, the managing authorities in the Member

States are responsible for setting up proportionate and effective anti-fraud measures

that take account of the identified risks. Such measures should cover the full anti-fraud

management process (fraud prevention, detection and response, up to and including

reporting on detected cases and recovery of funds unduly paid). The rate of detected

fraud in relation to EU cohesion funding for the 2007-2013 period ranged from 0 % to

2.1 %, depending on the Member State.

II Through this audit, we assessed whether managing authorities have properly met

their responsibilities at each stage of the anti-fraud management process. To this end,

we assessed whether managing authorities have:

(a) developed anti-fraud policies, performed a thorough risk assessment and

implemented adequate preventive and detective measures; and

(b) properly responded to detected fraud in coordination with other anti-fraud

bodies.

III We found that managing authorities assessed the risk of fraud in the use of

Cohesion funding better for the 2014-2020 programming period, using in most cases

the “ready-to-use” tool included in the Commission guidance. However, some of these

analyses were not sufficiently thorough. Although they have improved fraud

prevention measures, they have made no significant progress towards proactive fraud

detection. Additionally, they have not often developed procedures for monitoring and

evaluating the impact of their prevention and detection measures.

IV In the area of fraud response, managing authorities, in coordination with other

anti-fraud bodies, have not been sufficiently reactive to all detected cases of fraud. In

particular, reporting arrangements are unsatisfactory, several managing authorities fail

to systematically communicate suspicions of fraud to the competent bodies, corrective

measures have a limited deterrent effect and the coordination of anti-fraud activities is

insufficient. We also found that the fraud detection rate for the 2007-2013