Almost €50 billion allocated through the European Union’s main COVID-19 recovery fund, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), has not contributed sufficiently to addressing long-standing weaknesses in member states’ public administrations, according to a new report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
According to the auditors, reforms and investments financed under the facility have only partially addressed challenges related to administrative capacity, coordination and governance. The main focus has been on digitalisation rather than structural reforms.
Only around a third of the reforms and investments have delivered significant results. In some cases, there is also a risk that the achievements will not be sustainable after 2026, the auditors warn.
„The MFF funds could have been used more strategically and led to more substantial improvements in the performance of public administrations in the Member States. The opportunity to address long-standing structural challenges has largely been missed,” said Ivana Maletic, the ECA Member who led the audit.
She noted that the preparation of the next long-term EU budget provides an opportunity to learn from the shortcomings identified.
„With the preparation of the next long-term budget, the EU has the opportunity to learn from these shortcomings and focus more clearly on measuring results,“ said Maletic.
Digitalisation has displaced structural reforms
The audit shows that governments have been more willing to take action on some administrative problems than others. They have preferred measures that can be implemented quickly, such as investments in digitalization.
As a result of this approach, a number of other structural challenges have remained largely unresolved.
A case in point is governance – an area where deeper structural changes are often needed. Only 14% of the recommendations related to governance were substantially implemented.
According to the European Court of Auditors, this explains why the IPA measures have not helped Member States to make tangible progress in implementing the recommendations on public administration made in the framework of the European Semester.
Only 36% of measures have delivered significant results
The audit data show that significant results have been achieved so far for only 36% of the measures examined in the area of public administration.
For the remaining two thirds, results are limited or there is no evidence of progress.
The auditors also find a serious problem in assessing effectiveness: appropriate result indicators were set for less than half of the measures examined – only 43%.
The lack of such indicators makes it difficult to establish whether the reforms have actually led to faster administrative procedures, lower costs, better solutions for users of public services or more efficient management.
Weaknesses may persist in the next EU budget
According to the European Court of Auditors, the problems identified are likely to persist in the coming years.
The proposed performance monitoring system for the next long-term EU budget only partially addresses the weaknesses in assessing results. These have already been identified in a number of ECA audits.
The report highlights the need for future funding to be more clearly linked to measurable results, so that it can be assessed whether the money invested leads to real and sustainable improvements in the performance of public administrations in the Member States.