Do EU structures enable far-right misuse of public money? – DW – 07/04/2025

DW

2 days ago

A leaked audit accuses far-right parties of improperly spending millions in EU funds. Critics say it's not just a scandal but a symptom of the EU system's deeper problems.
From donations to dog shelters to questionable contracts with politically affiliated companies, far-right members of the European Parliament have been accused of funnelling public funds towards personal or ideological allies.
An internal parliamentary audit obtained by a group of investigative journalists from German broadcaster ARD's magazine show Kontraste, German newspaper , French newspaper and Austrian media outlet, Falter, reveals that the now-defunct far-right Identity and Democracy group, commonly referred to as ID, may have spent at least €4.3 million ($5.1 million) in EU operating funds on what the European Parliament's own administration calls "unjustified and potentially unlawful" transactions.
Every year the European Parliament allocates funds for the administrative and operational expenses of each political grouping in it, usually between €6 million to €7 million annually. Those funds are meant to support legislative work — such as funding policy research, running public events related to EU politics, or producing communications materials that explain their activities to citizens. Around 5% of this budget can be transferred to external organizations but donations to local charities, national campaign efforts, or groups with no clear link to EU-level work are explicitly prohibited.
However the internal audit alleges that around 80 of the ID group's expenses do not meet that requirement. The improper spending allegedly includes fictitious service contracts, improper tender procedures and donations to associations unrelated to parliamentary activities and connected to far-right figures, the investigating publications reported. The scale of the findings suggest that this was more than administrative sloppiness and raises deeper questions about how the EU's own structures may be enabling such abuses.
As an example, the report says the ID group — which disbanded in the summer of 2024 but previously included Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National, or RN, Germany's Alternative for Germany, or AfD, Italy's Lega and Austria's Freedom Party, or FPÖ — donated €1,000 ($1200) to the president of a French-Russian cultural association, Teremok. She is the spouse of Gregoire Eury, an RN councillor for the Grand Est region. This was just one of many connections between the associations that benefited from ID donations and far-right officials from ID-affiliated parties.
Other donations simply reflected the broader political affinities of ID elected officials. In Germany, SOS Leben (or "SOS Life," in English), which is linked to the AfD, received €3,500 to support anti-abortion campaigns. In France, €1,000 went to the Catholic identitarian association SOS Calvaires to restore a parish. Around €600,000 reportedly landed with , a far-right Austrian newspaper close to the FPÖ, with ID paying for advertising far above market rates. Money also went to animal shelters and charities — not necessarily a bad thing, but also not acceptable under EU rules.
French companies close to Marine Le Pen were among the biggest beneficiaries: Two firms tied to her longtime political allies reportedly received more than €3 million in total. One of them has previously been implicated in another EU funding scandal.
The former secretary general of now defunct ID group, Philip Claeys, denied any wrongdoing and told the investigating journalists that all the payments were "duly invoiced and justified." Claeys said that an external auditor and then the European Parliament had approved the ID group's yearly financial statements.
Donations by the group were apparently based on a rule called "Article 68." Only thing is, the investigative journalists found, there's no such thing as "Article 68." Yet it appeared in multiple years of published accounts without triggering alarms. When contacted, the Belgian auditors responsible declined to comment.
"This is not an isolated incident," Nick Aiossa, director at Transparency International EU, told DW. "This seems to be a scheme that that ran over many years, involved many entities cross-border." Without the proper checks in place, he adds, this could easily happen again today.
It is true that this is far from the first time that European MEPs have been caught misusing EU money. In March, Marine Le Pen was sentenced in France to four years probation and banned from holding political office after being found guilty of embezzling European parliamentary funds through a fake jobs scam. She has appealed the ruling.
And it's not only the far right. Past scandals have implicated politicians across the spectrum. The so-called Qatargate scandal in 2023 exposed bribery and cash-for-influence schemes involving current and former MEPs.
And in 2018, investigative journalists went to court seeking further information on what's known as "general expenditure allowance," or GEA, an amount paid monthly to MEPs for expenses like running an office and travel. MEPs get over €4,000 a month in GEA — this adds up to over €40 million a year — but don't have to provide information on how they've spent it. At the time, investigative journalists found over 200 of what they called "ghost offices." A court denied the journalists the information and the lack of transparency and accountability around the GEAs has remained a sore point.
Despite repeated scandals, the European Parliament has failed to implement meaningful reforms, Aiossa says. He argues that the institution has done itself lasting damage — first by refusing to respond decisively when issues arose, and then by continuing to tolerate weak accountability and integrity systems. The result, he warns, is a steady erosion of public trust.
At the core of the problem lies the structure of parliamentary finances, according to Aiossa. Instead of managing budgets directly, the European Parliament delegates this responsibility to the political groups themselves. Groups are required to conduct annual audits but those are done according to random sampling, which means misuse of funds may not be detected.
This means that the responsibility of how party group money is spent lies primarily with its party leadership, particularly its financial officers and secretary general. This, according to Aiossa, has to change. "The parliament needs to take a much more proactive approach in managing this money itself and not delegating that responsibility just to the political groups."
German MEP Niclas Herbst, a member of the conservative Christian Democrats, who chairs the Parliament's committee on budgetary control, agrees. "This is taxpayers money and we want it back," he told journalists. He plans to push for criminal charges on this latest case at the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), to show that there must be accountability.
Aiossa warns that unless the European Parliament seizes this moment to enact serious reforms, including transparency on allowances, competitive bidding for contracts and direct control over group budgets, public trust in the body will only continue to erode.