Protecting EU funds

Each year the EU disburses hundreds of billions worth of funds to Member States, non-EU countries, partners and organisations around the world to finance its strategic objectives. The main spending areas are the European Structural and Investment funds, agricultural funds, research and innovation funds such as Horizon as well as other direct expenditure schemes including the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and external aid. These funds finance European political priorities aiming at creating a stronger, smarter, competitive and resilient Europe. They are also intended to improve citizens’ lives by supporting key sectors such as agriculture, education, research & innovation, environment and industry.

OLAF's mandate is to detect, investigate and prevent any potential fraud or irregularity affecting the EU budget. In other words, we make sure that EU taxpayers’ money reaches the priority funding areas, where it is intended and where it does good.

This section highlights some of those cases, including an investigation into fraud of education funding that affected hundreds of projects amounting to around €70 million, a high-profile scandal affecting agricultural funding and a quite bizarre series of irregularities linked to a waste treatment facility!