Lost money belongs to EU
The head of the European Union’s anti-corruption unit OLAF, Giovanni Kessler, is stepping down, so it seems a good time to take stock of the fight against fraud.
Each year OLAF announces how much money from the EU budget has been lost to fraud and “irregularities” and ought to be recovered, and how much is actually recovered.
The responsibility for recovery lies with the country where the money disappeared.
Here’s the picture during Mr Kessler’s tenure. So, not counting 2016 because the figures are incomplete, that’s €2.475billion lost to fraud and €605million euro recovered.
That’s a total of €1.87bn down the pan, which equates to £1.64bn.