Committee on Budgetary Control Extraordinary meeting
8 October 2026
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CONT European Parliament
Follow its sittings02:58 - 04:01
Speaker 1
So good morning colleagues, welcome to our exceptional session of our committee in Strasbourg. I'm happy that you all that you are all able to attend. The adoption of the agenda is I think assured, there is no comment and as there is no objection, we adopt it.
My announcements will be very short, interpretation in the languages that you know and webstreaming may make you appear on TV and it shows that it's raining today in Brussels in Strasbourg, in Strasbourg. Our first item on the agenda is the European Court of Auditors' annual report and I don't want to take too much of our and of your time. I just would like to hand over to President Tony Murphy and the special court member Jan Gregor who did that report and I would welcome at that time as well our Commissioner Piotr Serafin. They have put you quite in the back, but you will move forward with your intervention, I'm sure. So President, over to you, we are happy that you are here.
04:01 - 08:37
Speaker 2
Thank you, Chair. Good morning, everybody. Honorable members, Commissioner, I am very pleased to address this committee here today to present the key findings and core messages of the European Court of Auditors' 2025 annual report. I am once again accompanied, as the Chair mentioned, by my esteemed colleague Jan Gregor, who is responsible for overseeing the audit work and the preparation of the annual report. This report is the core product of the ECA and it accounts for approximately 50% of the court's resources and represents a substantial investment of time, expertise and effort by our staff and members.
Alongside our compliance and performance audits, we identify risks, share lessons, and make practical recommendations. Our independent assessments are intended to support Parliament and other EU institutions in their role as decision-makers and co-legislators, hoping to ensure that public funds are managed well, spent in accordance with the rules, and that decisions are based on reliable evidence. A major decision is being shaped right now: the ongoing negotiations on the next Multiannual Financial Framework, MFF. This is not simply a discussion about the size of the next EU budget, but about how the budget will be financed, delivered, and controlled, and whether it will be capable of meeting the expectations being placed upon it. I think this is why the ECA's findings and recommendations are particularly relevant at this moment.
It offers valuable insights into the EU budget and its various policy areas.
Our annual report does not only assess the implementation of the current budget, it also provides lessons for the design of the next one. Today, I will present the principal findings of the 2025 annual report, alongside relevant conclusions from the ECA's recent and ongoing work, but I will also focus on their implications for the next MFF. So, the key takeaways: as usual, we provide a clean opinion on the 2025 EU accounts, confirming they accurately present the Union's financial position.
However, we do draw attention to the transition to the Commission's new accounting or financial IT system, which caused accounting errors requiring manual corrections and reconciliations as well as additional audit work. From a technical perspective, we also note the different treatment of borrowing in the EU versus in the EU financial statements. This results in a surplus in the budget while the accounts report a deficit or negative economic result for the year. Once again, we provide a clean opinion on EU revenue, which is free from material error. However, as in previous years, our opinion does not cover amounts resulting from underreported or evaded duties and taxes, since our assessment can only focus on the reported and booked figures.
Turning to expenditure, the EU's long-term budget includes both traditional spending under the MFF and funding under NextGenerationEU. NGEU funding primarily involves the Recovery and Resilience Facility, or RRF, which follows a different delivery model from the MFF, based on the achievement of milestones and targets. As a result, we continue to issue two distinct opinions on the regularity of expenditure: one covering the traditional EU budget spending and another covering that related to the RRF.
Starting with traditional EU budget spending, our estimated level of error has increased to 3.8% in 2025 compared to 3.6 the previous year. As this is above our materiality threshold and given the significant and widespread nature of the errors we identified, we issue an adverse opinion on EU budget expenditure for the seventh consecutive year. The estimated level of error is not a measure of fraud, inefficiency or waste; it is an estimate of the amount of money that was not used in compliance with EU and national rules. Our audit covered expenditure totaling 130.8 billion euros under the general budget. The largest contributor to our error rate was Natural Resources and Environment, which had an estimated level of error of 3.9% compared to 2.6 the previous year.
More than 95% of spending under this heading falls within the Common Agricultural Policy, with errors ranging from the declaration of ineligible land to the incorrect calculation of payment entitlements. Cohesion, Resilience and Values had an estimated level of error at 6.6% compared to 5.7 in 2024.