Fraudsters net £1.7bn of EU funds in four years

Money from the EU’S Regional Development Fund meant for improving roads in Romania – about £19million of it – has allegedly been siphoned off by prominent local politician Liviu Dragnea. He denies the accusation and says he’ll sue OLAF, the EU’S anti-fraud body – which is messy, especially as Romania now holds the EU presidency. OLAF insists that it has “a strong deterrent effect” which seems like wishful thinking judging by a new report which rips into ramshackle EU efforts to stop fraud. Fewer than half the suspected fraud cases that OLAF forwards to EU member states result in a prosecution, according to the report by the independent European Court of Auditors. Between 2012 and 2016, OLAF identified £1.7billion of EU money that taken by fraudsters, but just 13% was recovered. The report suggests these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Many frauds go unreported – for instance, member states only have to report fraud or “irregularities” involving more than €10,000, about £9,000. Some member states implausibly report zero frauds, and these tend to be the ones with the worst score on a measure of good government called the Corruption Perception Index. The report blames the European Commission for this very costly state of affairs. “We found that the Commission lacks comprehensive information on the scale, nature and causes of fraud,” it wrote. “Its official statistics on detected fraud are not complete and it has so far not carried out any assessment of undetected fraud.” The report states that OLAF makes recommendations to EU departments called Directorates General highlighting “weaknesses in their fraud prevention and detection controls”. However, “It is not possible to evaluate the impact of these recommendations, as neither OLAF nor the Directorates General follow-up on whether these recommendations have been implemented.” In yet another criticism, the auditors say: “There is no detailed analysis to identify what causes some recipients of EU money to behave fraudulently.” I can answer that. Crooks steal money from the EU because the chances of being caught and having to repay it are as slim as Jean-claude Juncker doing Dry January.

ACCUSED Liviu Dragnea