The European Union’s anti-fraud office, OLAF, is investigating potential fraud using the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery cash in a number of EU countries.
The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), agreed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, is a €724 billion cash-pot financed through common EU debt, which disburses funds through grants and loans to EU countries in exchange for investment and reforms.
So far, €150 billion has been disbursed under the facility, with Italy and Spain the largest recipients, accounting for over a quarter of the total to date.
“OLAF is looking into the use of [RRF] funds in member states. There are currently a number of ongoing investigations into allegations of irregularities with [RRF] funds concerning different member states,” an OLAF press officer told POLITICO and Belgian news weekly Knack. A spokesperson declined to answer further questions on how many and which countries were involved, or how much money was potentially at risk.
OLAF’s mandate is to investigate fraud and corruption involving EU funds. If OLAF has reason to believe that criminal behavior has taken place, it passes the cases on to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
As of the end of last year, the EPPO had 15 active investigations open into expenditure fraud related to RRF funds, of which nine were in Italy, three in Romania, two in Portugal and one in Croatia. A spokesperson said that one of these cases came from OLAF.
Kamiel Vermeylen from Knack.be contributed reporting.
