EU Court of Auditors criticizes the 2028-2034 budget: “Risks to sound financial management”

Brussels – The EU’s budget proposal for the period 2028-2034, as currently organised, is not acceptable. The system designed by the European Commission poses “multiple risks to sound financial management” and therefore needs to be rethought. The European Court of Auditors criticises the entire College of Commissioners and, even more so, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who strongly advocated for a single fund combining agricultural funds from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and cohesion funds, despite firm opposition in the Council and in the European Parliament, where even the EPP, the political party to which von der Leyen belongs, raised strong objections. Now, the auditors in Luxembourg have added another rejection to those already recorded.

The issue, as explained in the report published by the EU Court of Auditors, lies in the scope of the proposed new multiannual financial framework (MFF 2028-2034). The European Commission’s proposals “fundamentally change the way EU spending is planned, managed and scrutinised” in a way that is considered unsustainable and unmanageable.

 https://www.eunews.it/en/2025/10/30/de-castro-nomisma-as-it-stands-the-eu-budget-cant-be-negotiated-scrap-the-single-fund/

It is precisely the single fund proposed by von der Leyen that makes the next MFF unsustainable. The Court identifies at least four critical issues here: first, Member States “may struggle to address all EU objectives satisfactorily through their national plans, while tailoring interventions to regional and national development needs.” Secondly, “while the proposal promises greater simplification, this may be mainly at the Commission level, and the administrative burden on member states, regions and beneficiaries may be no lighter.” Furthermore, the proposed guarantee framework entails “accountability risks,” given that “the proposal reduces the Commission’s role and relies more on national control systems, where the auditors have consistently identified weaknesses in previous years.” 

Finally, the “NRRP model” of the EU budget, with funds disbursed only once targets and objectives are achieved, makes it “vital for these milestones and targets to be precisely defined, so that it is clear when they are actually achieved,” which is not currently guaranteed. In this regard, the EU Court of Auditors notes that “a quarter of the intervention fields lack result indicators and the proposal contains no impact indicators,” thus complicating assessments. In other words, “the proposed framework risks measuring progress implementation rather than whether EU objectives have been achieved.” Hence, the call, deemed necessary by the Luxembourg auditors, for “stronger safeguards.”