The European Court of Auditors found that climate-related expenditure under the 2014-2020 EU programme was overstated, with around one euro in five spent not qualifying as climate spending.

Omissions

• The ECA figure is a floor ('at least €72 billion'), so the true overstatement share is one third or more, i.e. clearly larger than the 'one in five euro' (20%) cited by the speaker.
• The overstatement is concentrated in agricultural funding (over 80% of the €72 billion), which the claim does not mention.
• The claimed figure of 'one in five euro' more closely matches the EU's 20% climate-spending TARGET (€216 billion of the 2014-2020 budget), which the ECA found was not actually met — the speaker appears to conflate the target share with the overstatement share.
• The second element of the speech (billions of RRF funds incorrectly reported as green expenditure) could not be verified with the sources retrieved in this check; ECA work on RRF climate reporting exists but was not confirmed here.
• The ECA estimate dates from May 2022, i.e. it is the definitive ex-post audit of the 2014-2020 period but is more than two years old relative to the session date.

Sources

• PrimaryEuropean Court of Auditors — Special Report 09/2022 'Climate spending in the 2014-2020 EU budget: Not as high as reported'"Our analysis indicated that the Commission overstated climate spending by at least €72 billion, over 80 % of which was from agricultural funding." / "We found that the reported spending was not always relevant to climate action and climate reporting was overstated overall."
• SecondaryEUROSAI audit database — ECA Special Report 09/2022 summary"The EU committed to spending at least 20 % of its 2014-2020 budget on climate action. The Commission announced that the EU met the target, with €216 billion ... We found that the reported spending was not always relevant to climate action and climate reporting was overstated overall."
• SecondaryThe Brussels Times — 'Unreliable': EU overstated spending on climate action, report finds"Auditors found that the EU's reporting on climate spending was so beset with weaknesses, that it was generally unreliable."