EU Budget Error Rate Hits 3.8% for Second Year as Debt Nears €1 Trillion
October 9, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The European Court of Auditors found a 3.8 per cent error rate in EU spending in 2025, up from 3.6 per cent in 2024 and nearly double the 2 per cent threshold, while total EU debt rose to €738.9 billion with projections pointing to €1 trillion by 2027.
The European Court of Auditors put the EU's spending error rate at 3.8 per cent in 2025, up from 3.6 per cent the year before, according to the ECA's annual report published on October 8. The figure sits nearly double the auditors' own 2 per cent materiality threshold. In cash terms, the ECA estimates that roughly €6.7 billion was spent in breach of EU or national rules.
The auditors issued an adverse opinion on EU spending for the seventh year in a row, meaning errors were both material and pervasive. That verdict covers traditional budget spending. The Recovery and Resilience Facility received a qualified opinion, a less severe finding but not a clean one. Separately, the ECA flagged 17 suspected fraud cases to EU authorities; the error rate itself measures rule-breaches, not fraud.
The error rate peaked at 5.6 per cent in 2023, fell to 3.6 per cent in 2024, and rose again to 3.8 per cent in 2025, the ECA annual report shows. The rate stood at just 3 per cent in 2021.
The worst-performing areas sit exactly where the money is thickest. Cohesion funding, which channels regional development cash to member states for infrastructure, training and jobs, carried an error rate of 6.6 per cent in 2025, up from 5.7 per cent in 2024, the ECA report shows. Agriculture and environment spending climbed from 2.6 per cent to 3.9 per cent over the same period. Those two headings together account for almost two-thirds of the €130.8 billion the auditors examined. Ineligible costs, projects and beneficiaries made up 51 per cent of quantified errors; broken procurement rules contributed 26 per cent; missing paperwork added 19 per cent.
The Recovery and Resilience Facility drew particular attention. Nine of the 37 grant payments made to member states in 2025 did not meet the applicable conditions. The ECA found that 13 of the 20 milestones and targets it examined were watered down after the relevant member state had already submitted its payment request. Ireland, for example, requested payment in December 2024 and then asked in January 2025 to cut its ICT graduate target from 12,450 to 10,900, citing administrative burden. The ECA report identified persistent weaknesses in milestone design, gaps in Commission monitoring and unreliable national control systems.
More than €122 billion of the €359.9 billion in committed RRF grants remains to be disbursed in the facility's final year, well above the €70.1 billion the Commission projected as recently as July 2024. Meanwhile, EU debt rose from €601.3 billion in 2024 to €738.9 billion in 2025, the ECA report shows. Total borrowing could reach €1 trillion by 2027 as NextGenerationEU loans run on and Ukraine support is financed. Loans for Ukraine approved or agreed since 2014 total €170.1 billion, of which €70.3 billion had been paid out by the end of 2025.
Interest on the non-repayable portion of NextGenerationEU alone could reach €93 billion over 2028 to 2034, the auditors calculated. ECA President Tony Murphy told a press briefing that debt repayments would consume 8 per cent of the proposed €2 trillion budget for 2028 to 2034. He warned of "a worrying tendency" to treat common debt as "virtual money." "It's real debts, which have to be paid back," he said.
Negotiations on the next long-term budget remain open. Without new revenue, the ECA warns, member states face a choice between higher national contributions and lower ambitions.
Published October 9, 2026 · Frisian News