The European Court of Auditors (ECA) recorded a revaluation of spending on climate projects and an incorrect calculation of the amounts actually spent in EU countries such as Croatia, Greece, Slovakia and Portugal.
The agency published the results of the audit in its report.
EU inspectors found that Croatia and Portugal had overstated potential climate contributions to some projects, such as clean urban transport and adapting forests to climate change. Despite the discovery of a positive side effect on the climate, EU auditors claim that both member states have increased the share of funds calculated and planned for "climate action" according to the formula of the European Commission.
They recalled that the contribution to the green transition concerns reforms and investments in green technologies and capacities, including biodiversity, energy efficiency, building reconstruction and the circular economy.
In Greece, "green" funds were allocated for the construction of a new hydro-accumulating power plant, but they forgot to assess the impact of construction on the environment.
Slovakian EU auditors pointed out that within the framework of the modernization of hydroelectric power plants, biogas and biomethane plants, the budget was set too high to achieve the set goal, and questioned the ambition of the projects' goals:
"The amounts approved by Slovakia for these projects correspond to 30% of the estimated costs for the implementation of the measures. Thus, the remaining 70% of the support can be directed to achieve only 6% of the planned, which indicates that the measure could be achieved for less costs as the target was set very low," the ECA report said.
The audit also found the overall contribution to the transition of the Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF), which was created to rebuild the EU after the pandemic, to be "unexplained". As of February 2024, it has allocated €275 billion to support EU climate targets across the bloc. But the auditors questioned the effectiveness of the use of these funds.
Olivier Vardakoulias, Finance and Subsidy Coordinator at the non-governmental organization Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, told Euronews that the climate integration methodology used in the RRF leads to an overestimation of actual investment in climate and the "green transition", while the provisions on RRF management do not provide effective monitoring. He believes that member states should now take into account the conclusions of the report and urgently accelerate the development of existing funds for real investments in the "green transition".
In July, EcoPolitic reported that the EU allocates a record €7 billion for sustainable and smart transport infrastructure projects.
