“In support of the truth, despite the negative public perception, the percentage of confirmed cases of fraud and irregularities is relatively low, although we would like, and we are working towards that, that the two indicators were zero”, said the Portuguese European Commissioner of Cohesion and Reforms.

Elisa Ferreira took part in a seminar organized by the ‘Think Tank’ of the Public Ministry dedicated to the risk of fraud in the use of community funds, which took place today at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento, in Lisbon.

The commissioner underlined that the data is not yet final, since the execution of this forecast period of payments until 2023, but considered that there is already “a substantial sample” of payments.

In the European Union as a whole, for the same period of funding programming, “498 irregularities also classified as fraudulent amounting to 2.4 million euros were detected, which corresponds to 1.3% of all payments”.

“Going into detail, in these 2.4 billion euros, there is a country where there is a case of fraud worth 1.2 billion euros, so there is a country that occupies half of this value and it is not Portugal, it is a case in Romania. And there are two cases of the cohesion fund, each with 190 million euros”, referred the European commissioner, adding that, if these cases were excluded, “the fraud rate at European level becomes 0 .4%”.

The data lead Elisa Ferreira to consider that Portugal has “a performance that, globally, is positive”, being an example of several “good practices, maintenance of administrative capacity and anti-fraud culture that deserve to be remembered”.

The person in charge of the Community portfolio for Cohesion and Reforms lists the challenges posed to the European Union, be it the covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the subsequent refugee crisis, the escalation in energy prices and reflection, but also underlined the moment of “green and digital transformation”, which “generates immense opportunities”, but “contains the risk that, in fact, there is an increased propensity for fraud and errors”.

This whole context led Europe to opt for a “relaxation of the rules”, which “was necessary, was even indispensable and constituted an essential part of the positive response given by the European Union”, but which now cannot “compromise the effectiveness of audits and of the controls” of the use and management of the funds, defended Elisa Ferreira.

The commissioner defended in this regard “the adoption of more demanding specific measures to combat irregularities and fraud, for example, through the much more intense use of artificial intelligence and greater interoperability of management and control systems”.