EU auditors warn recovery fund transparency is too weak to track spending

The European Court of Auditors has warned that the EU's €577bn pandemic recovery fund has major transparency gaps, making it difficult to see where the money ended up and what it achieved.

In a report published on Wednesday, the auditors said the Recovery and Resilience Facility, launched in 2021, was meant to support rebuilding after Covid with a focus on green and digital investment.

By January 2026, €577bn of the €723.8bn pot had been committed.

The court said member states are not required to publish actual amounts spent on individual measures, and only have to list the 100 largest recipients of the funding.

It said this leaves much of the money trail unclear, especially once funds are passed from public bodies to private companies, NGOs, banks and investment funds.

Ivana Maletić, the report's lead author, said there was a "huge lack of transparency" and called for information on all recipients, not just the largest ones.

The auditors also said that even where countries have created online dashboards or maps, information on final beneficiaries or investment results is often missing.

The findings matter because the recovery fund is one of the EU's largest spending programmes and was designed to deliver long-term reforms and investment across member states.

The auditors said the current reporting system makes it hard for citizens, journalists and policymakers to assess whether the money has been used effectively.

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