The 'natural resources and environment' spending area had an estimated error rate of 3.9% in 2025, up from 2.6% the previous year.

Omissions

• The ECA measures an 'estimated level of error', not an 'error rate' in the strict sense; the figure is an audit estimate of the share of expenditure not complying with applicable rules, not a measure of waste or fraud, and the ECA itself warns against equating it with misspent money.
• Cohesion policy had a higher estimated level of error in 2025 (6.6 %, up from 5.7 % in 2024) than the 'Natural resources and environment' area; the latter was nevertheless the largest single contributor to the overall material error because of the size of the spending concerned — context the speaker does not mention.
• The overall estimated level of error for 2025 EU spending was 3.8 %, a figure the speaker does not cite.

Sources

• PrimaryEuropean Court of Auditors — 2025 EU audit in brief (annual reports for the 2025 financial year)"The largest contributor to the material error was 'Natural resources and environment' which had an estimated level of error at 3.9 % (2.6 % in 2024)."
• PrimaryEuropean Court of Auditors — 2025 EU audit in brief (publication page)"The largest contributor to the material error was 'Natural resources and environment' which had an estimated level of error at 3.9 % (2.6 % in ...)"
• PrimaryEuropean Court of Auditors — Annual reports concerning the 2025 financial year"In 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 ..." (annual reports for the 2025 financial year, including the estimated levels of error per spending area)
• SecondarySofia Globe — 'European Court of Auditors: Estimated 3.8% of the EU budget was misspent in 2025'"The error rate for cohesion funding rose from 5.7 per cent in 2024 to 6.6 per cent in 2025, while the rate for agriculture and the environment ..." (report on the ECA's 2025 annual reports, overall estimated error rate 3.8 %)