European Court of Auditors probes rule-of-law safeguards in Bulgaria

The European Court of Auditors is starting to assess whether the European Commission has been effective in protecting the EU’s financial interests against breaches of the rule of law in Bulgaria and five other countries - Greece, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

The auditors will examine the steps taken by the Commission to ensure that countries receive EU funding only if they respect the rule of law. The audit will focus on EU cohesion policy and COVID-19 recovery funding.

“Violations of the rule of law, such as failures to properly investigate corruption or a lack of judicial independence, can have major financial implications within the EU, and may lead to EU money being misused in the member states.”

“Our audit will determine whether the Commission’s use of the tools at its disposal to protect the EU budget against breaches of the rule of law has been effective, in particular in cohesion and recovery funding..”said Annemie Turtelboom, the ECA member who will lead the audit.

In 2020, the EU adopted rules to link EU funding to compliance with the rule of law. Countries' access to EU funding can be suspended, reduced or restricted when there are serious rule of law violations. These budget protection measures have so far only been used for Hungary (in December 2022), for which 55% of the funds it was to receive under three EU cohesion programmes will be suspended.

The Court of Auditors' report is expected to be published in about a year's time.