Good morning,
Where EU money flows and oversight fails, taxpayers foot the bill. That’s why when it comes to the next €2 trillion EU’s long-term budget for 2028–2034, one could or should expect real‑time transparency on who gets what, independent auditing, and democratic scrutiny that avoids flexibility from becoming a blank cheque.
But the new performance-based architecture of the EU’s long-term budget risks creating a box-ticking system that is both untransparent and undemocratic — de facto weakening the European Parliament’s role as a budgetary watchdog.
First, measuring performance is not an exact science.
“Performance-based budgeting can work, but it comes with risks,” Päivi Leino-Sandberg, a Finnish professor of transnational European law, told MEPs in a committee on Tuesday morning, arguing that mistakes from the pandemic recovery funds should be addressed.
“We all agree structural reforms are important, but they … are hard to pin down in quantitative milestones," she said, describing targets as "purely procedural" or "highly-subjective".
The overlooked 2024 legal fight between Lithuania and the European Commission over frozen tax reform funds proves her point.
Then, there is the transparency problem, closely linked to democratic oversight.
For the recovery funds, the European Commission negotiated the allocation of money behind closed doors with national governments, triggering concerns from MEPs, European auditors, the EU ombudsman, experts — and investigative journalists across the bloc.
With access to documents requests (FOIs) rejected and no public information available, critics said there was (and still is) no meaningful way to hold either the commission or national capitals to account.
Now, the same pattern could play out under the EU’s long-term budget, even as the commission tries to reassure MEPs.
EU budget commissioner Piotr Serafin told MEPs on Tuesday that making information on recipients, final beneficiaries, contractors, and subcontractors publicly available would change the dynamics in many member states and reshape discussions around the EU budget — while acknowledging that this is not currently the case for the recovery funds, despite the commission’s pledge to ensure more transparency for (at least) the 100 largest beneficiaries.
“I'm a big fan of transparency,” Serafin claimed.
“But there are political choices here. The more accountability, the more we want to measure the performance, the more reporting obligations we are introducing,” he also said, as such scrutiny would run counter to the commission’s simplification agenda.
The commission’s proposed ‘Single Gateway’ could improve transparency, but if the site only shows curated information while restricting access to original documents, exchanges with member states, or milestones status, it will do little to ensure real public accountability. The way EU law is written does not suggest things would improve, Leino-Sandberg recently wrote in an analysis for the European Parliament.
- Elena Sánchez Nicolas, editor-in-chief
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