The European Court of Auditors published its 2010 Annual Report in which it confirms that the EU accounts reliable. However payments were still affected by material error. Cohesion, energy and transport was the most error-prone EU area of EU expenditure, with an estimated error rate of 7.7%.

According to the European Court of Auditors (ECA), the 2010 accounts present fairly the financial position of the European Union. The ECA's 2010 Annual Report concludes that accounts present fairly the financial position of the European Union and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year. However, the payments underlying these accounts were still affected by material error, with an estimated error rate of 3.7% for the €122.2 billion of EU spending. ECA insists that the error rate is not an estimate of fraud but reflects the ECA’s estimation of the degree of non-compliance with the rules governing the spending.

Budgets Committee at the European Parliament also discussed this report in a meeting. MEPs showed their worrying because two thirds of all errors in cohesion payments occurred in three Member States, namely Spain, Italy, and the Czech Republic (in total 16 countries were audited). The legislative package for cohesion policy for the period from 2014 until 2020 is still waiting for the final approval. The report also highlights that cohesion, energy and transport was the most error-prone EU area of EU expenditure, with an estimated error rate of 7.7%. This is higher than in 2009 and also explains the small increase in the estimated error rate for the budget as a whole.

ECA also presents some recommendations to make EU spending effective besides legal and regular. For instance, it recommends that the Commission and the Member States should pay greater attention to setting objectives that are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timed – when planning EU spending programmes as well as managing the risks to implementation. Good quality performance reporting is key to ensuring the accountability of those responsible for managing the EU budget.