The European Court of Auditors confirmed a trend of growing irregularities in EU shared and direct management programmes.

Omissions

• The rise in the estimated error rate is mainly driven by cohesion policy expenditure under shared management, not by an equivalent deterioration in directly managed programmes.
• The ECA's own headline message is that the estimated level of error 'remains too high' rather than an explicit statement of a multi-year 'confirmed trend' of growing irregularities across all management modes.
• The sources available describe the overall error level and the cohesion-driven increase; the exact error-rate figures for directly managed programmes in the 2025 financial year could not be extracted within the search budget.
• Some search results (e.g. the euobserver article on 'increasing irregular spending') refer to an increase in the error rate attributable to cohesion policy and may relate to an earlier financial year; the exact publication date could not be confirmed.

Sources

• PrimaryEuropean Court of Auditors — Annual reports concerning the 2025 financial yearIn 2025, EU payments totalled €216.4 billion: €176.3 billion in spending from the EU budget, and a further €40.1 billion from the Recovery and ...
• PrimaryEuropean Court of Auditors — News: 'Auditors: Homework to do on the EU's next long-term budget' (annual report 2025)In their annual report published today, the EU auditors warn that the estimated level of error in EU spending remains too high.
• SecondaryEUobserver — 'Auditors highlight increasing irregular spending in EU budget'The report found that the increase in the error rate may be due to incorrect cohesion policy expenditure.