UN 
The European Court of Auditors has reported that the European Union (EU) has overstated spending on the environment and climate change by 34.5 billion euros from the Covid-19 bailout fund.
The European Court of Auditors, based in Luxembourg and responsible for auditing the EU budget and funds, released its report on the use of green funds under the Union’s 700 billion euro Covid-19 economic rescue program.
“The EU’s bailout fund is probably not as green as claimed,” the report said, noting that its contribution to climate action and green transformation, which are the main elements of the Covid-19 bailout fund, is uncertain.
Recalling that at least 37 percent of the bailout fund should be allocated to climate action, the report said: “The EU Commission calculated that by February 2024, measures to support the EU’s climate goals had reached €275 billion, or 42.5 percent of the bailout fund.”
Noting that the Commission’s green figure is billions of euros higher than the actual value, the report said that these contributions are actually overstated by at least 34.5 billion euros.
The report said there were problems in reporting actual spending on climate-related milestones and targets and in some projects classified as green.
“A closer examination of some projects classified as green showed that they did not have a direct link to the green transformation,” the report said, stressing that information technology expenditures for digitizing the water system or some personnel costs were included as green expenditures even though they did not contribute to the climate goal.
Source: AA
