Brussels’ auditors warn that anti-fraud architecture doesn’t keep up with sophisticated schemes, and that the European Commission lacks oversight of whether it recovers money from fraud investigations

European Union efforts to combat fraud are hampered by slow administration and poor communication among its main anti-fraud bodies, according to an auditors’ report that also found the bloc is not tracking whether it is repaid any of the recovered funds.

The report this week by the European Court of Auditors found that mandates across the EU’s main anti-fraud bodies are clear, but persistent weaknesses in information exchange — combined with gaps in European Commission oversight — undermine efforts to protect the EU budget.

“The limited exchange of information affects the number of investigations and other measures designed to protect the EU’s financial interests,” the auditors’ report said. “We also found that the Commission does not have full oversight of either the amounts owed to the EU budget or actually recovered as a result of fraud investigations.”

The report focuses on the lack of cooperation between the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which carries out administrative investigations and issues recovery recommendations, and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which runs cross-border criminal investigations and prosecutes cases in national courts across participating EU states.

From 2022 to 2024, OLAF recommended 615 million euros ($721 million) be recovered to the EU budget, however only 23 million euros ($27 million) had been recovered, according to the report.

Over that same period, the report said, EPPO froze 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in assets linked to suspected fraud. In 2024 alone, its cases led to courts issuing final recovery orders totaling 232 million euros ($272 million). Despite those rulings, the report said, there is no European Commission mechanism to monitor whether the money was repaid to the EU budget.

Auditors flagged weak feedback loops between criminal and administrative tracks, noting that EPPO is not required to systematically inform OLAF about discontinued investigations.

Their report also noted that OLAF’s use of complementary investigations alongside EPPO cases remains rare — limiting the chances to apply administrative tools such as exclusions from EU financing or other protective measures while criminal proceedings are still underway.

When asked by OCCRP to comment on the report’s findings, OLAF pushed back on interpreting the 2022-2024 snapshot as a measure of the impact of its work.

“In practice, the recovery of funds is an administrative process that often takes a considerable period of time… Up until end of 2024, OLAF case work has resulted in the recovery of over 4.5 billion euros [$5.3 billion] to the EU budget,” an OLAF spokesperson told OCCRP.

EPPO issued a formal reply welcoming the report’s findings, saying “it has become manifest that the EU Anti-Fraud Architecture needs to be further developed, in particular to counter more efficiently organized crime groups defrauding EU revenue.”

The findings land as Brussels reviews its broader anti-fraud approach ahead of the next long-term EU budget debate. The report’s three main recommendations were to streamline reporting and information exchange, analyze wide variations in fraud reporting across member states and EU bodies, and develop a methodology to measure the impact of investigations — including what is ultimately repaid to the EU budget after national court decisions.

Green MEP Daniel Freund agreed with the auditors’ diagnosis, saying that the EU’s anti-fraud system is not keeping pace with cross-border schemes.

“The European Court of Auditors is right: EU anti-fraud is too fragmented and too bureaucratic to keep up with professional, cross-border fraud networks,” he told OCCRP.

“A main problem is poor information exchange… If OLAF investigates for weeks or months before the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is involved, suspects are long warned and can destroy evidence. In cases of suspected fraud, there must be no delays.”

Freund called for structural fixes, including “a central reporting register” and added that “the Commission finally needs a system that enables it to systematically record and follow up recoveries of EU funds.”