In the next EU budget, it might not be possible to even estimate such a number, Murphy warned, as each country’s auditors have different roles and ways of doing things. His head of cabinet, Wolfgang Stolz, added during the interview: “Year after year we have found that the work of these auditing authorities is not fully reliable.”
In a statement, the Commission defended its proposal, underlining that “key principles” of the current control system will remain in place. National authorities are “well-functioning,” the statement contended, but added that the Commission would maintain the right to ask capitals to “amend the plan or introduce correction mechanisms if needed.”
‘Mixed bag’
One of the Commission’s proposed innovations is putting the Common Agricultural Policy — historically a standalone budget line — into a behemoth umbrella fund known as the National and Regional Partnership Plans.
Murphy stressed that he’s not advocating for any model over the other. But as EU money increasingly merges with national budgets, it will be harder for Brussels to monitor where its money actually goes. The CAP is simpler to audit when “it’s not mixed up in this mixed bag,” Murphy said.
Headlines about farm subsidies paying for fake pastures in Greece and cash meant to support rural tourism in Slovakia instead going to luxury villas for the rich offer lurid illustrations of the challenge of policing these funds under the current system.
And the model for the new spending system — the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund — doesn’t bode well, Murphy said. While it became easier for countries to direct the funds where they were needed, the spending also became more opaque. The new national plans were designed using the same blueprint.
Under the current budget system, the ECA can physically visit a farm that receives EU funds. However, under the Covid recovery fund, the EU publishes only the top 100 beneficiaries each year.
“It’s not very transparent. I mean, where is the EU money actually ending up? That’s what matters,” Murphy said. “You have a fund where there are different policy areas with completely different objectives and timeframes, different delivery mechanisms and less predictability.”