Belgium is rapidly running out of time to claim the last part of the European funds granted to it, warns the European Court of Auditors.
Nearly a quarter (24%) of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESI) still need to be "absorbed" by the end of the year, amounting to €723 million.
As part of the ESI, Belgium was allocated an investment of €2.28 billion from 2014 to 2020. Once the funds are accepted, the Member State must submit a file for the funds to be paid. A three-year deadline is granted for most of this expenditure, meaning that Belgium must submit a request for payment of all these funds before the end of 2023.
But why has Belgium been slow to absorb these much-needed funds? "In some cases, the Member State does not have enough civil servants to submit the file. During infrastructure or construction projects, for example, the permit is sometimes not granted, or the project is not complete," explained Annemie Turtelboom, member of the Court of Auditors.
Belgium is not very efficient in handling these types of bureaucratic procedures. "Since my arrival at the Court in 2018, Belgium has had enormous problems absorbing European funds," noted Turtelboom. Belgian's institutional complexity, with its numerous overlapping governments and authorities, likely plays a role.
For the EU as a whole, the funds amounted to almost €500 billion between 2014 and 2020, of which 80.4% (€396 billion) has already been paid out. Ireland has been the best at absorbing this funding. The country has already requested 91% of its allocated funds. Denmark performs worst, at just 67%.
