EU Auditors Find Weaknesses In More Than Half Of EU Agencies

BRUSSELS, Oct 30 (Bernama-dpa) -- The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has found weaknesses in how more than half of EU agencies handled their finances in 2025, reported German news agency dpa. 

According to the report released on Thursday, the auditors identified room for improvement at 28 of the 43 agencies, including the EU border agency Frontex and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). 

"The good news is that public money is managed well overall, but the weaknesses we identified also show why strong checks are essential in protecting EU taxpayers' money," said Petri Sarvamaa, the member of the ECA in Luxembourg in charge of the annual audit. 

As in previous years, public tenders were the biggest source of errors, the court said. This concerned both the award procedures themselves and the handling of contracts. Other complaints included grants and staffing matters.

The court found the accounts of 42 of the 43 agencies to be reliable. The only exception was the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), which among other things promotes cooperation between universities, research institutions and companies.

The auditors said the EIT should have given greater consideration in its annual accounts to the possibility that it may not fully recover claims worth millions.

The 43 agencies are based in 23 EU states and employed more than 17,000 people at the end of 2025. They carry out technical, scientific, regulatory or operational tasks, for example in border protection, medicines or food safety.

Their budgets totalled €5.9 billion (US$6.6 billion) in 2025, compared with €5.3 billion the year before. In both years, the agencies accounted for around 4 per cent of the total EU budget.

--BERNAMA-dpa