More than 2 billion euro in European Union (EU) funding to help businesses save energy has made a modest contribution to achieving the EU’s climate goals, and in some cases many projects have been carried out without the support of the EU, says the European Court of Auditors (ECA).

In a special report published on Monday, the European Court of Auditors called for clarification of the contributions that EU funds make to energy efficiency in businesses. The auditors conclude that EU funding is still insufficiently linked to business needs. In addition, the expected results of this funding – although the existing monitoring framework makes it impossible to identify them – will most likely provide only a modest contribution to the EU’s energy efficiency targets. Among other things, the auditors identified evidence to suggest that a number of projects could have been implemented without public support.

The auditors note that the planned level of support for EU cohesion policy has fallen in recent years, from a global financial package set in 2016 at 3.2 billion euro, to 2.4 billion in 2020. In addition, most of the expenditure was concentrated in only a few Member States. About two-thirds of the expenditure allocated to energy efficiency in enterprises corresponds to only five Member States (Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Italy and Bulgaria).

“Improving the energy performance of businesses, regardless of the sector in which they operate, is essential if the EU is to achieve its goal of reducing emissions by at least 55% by 2030. However, to date, the real effect that EU funding for energy efficiency in businesses has remains unclear,” said Samer Jereb, a member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, according to Agerpres.

The report calls into question the real added value of EU funding. It is clear that EU grants play a role when companies make investment decisions. However, in most cases, the investments that received funding were already planned. In other words, many projects would have been carried out without EU support.