The European Court of Auditors has once again raised concerns about the functioning of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the mechanism used to finance spending under national recovery plans across the European Union. According to the Court, the system lacks proper tools to assess effectiveness and to detect potential financial irregularities. Polish MEP Bogdan Rzońca from the Law and Justice party (PiS) says that criticism of the funding model is also increasingly heard within the European Parliament.
The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, worth €650 billion, was established in February 2021 as a temporary one-off instrument designed to help EU member states recover from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthen the resilience of their economies. The RRF finances reforms and investments through a model in which payments are not linked to actual costs but depend on member states achieving specific milestones and targets.
“This new instrument is assessed very differently by policymakers,” Bogdan Rzońca told the Newseria news agency. “I have even heard opinions from MEPs from various countries that it simply has not worked. The European Court of Auditors has also raised serious concerns about the method and effectiveness of the funds being spent.”
In May 2025, the Court published a report evaluating the EU instrument. Auditors emphasized that the RRF cannot be considered a results-based financing mechanism and that relatively little emphasis has been placed on outcomes. According to the report, it remains unclear what has actually been achieved with the funds spent and who the final beneficiaries are. As a result, it is difficult to assess the efficiency of the expenditures and whether the funds have been used economically. This is largely because the European Commission does not collect data on the actual costs incurred, while information on achieved results is limited.
In another report published in February 2026, the Court indicated that the RRF contains numerous shortcomings in the detection, reporting, and correction of financial irregularities. Although the European Commission has taken steps to clarify requirements for anti-fraud systems in member states, it has not sufficiently specified the nature of controls at the national level. The Court concluded that many member states are not fully using available tools to detect financial abuse, making it impossible to accurately estimate the scale of potential irregularities within the RRF.
The auditors also noted that while member states are obliged to recover funds improperly spent from final recipients, they are not required to return those funds to the EU budget. As a result, EU financial interests are not optimally protected.
“Today I rely only on what the European Court of Auditors writes, because the European Commission does not have the personnel or instruments to verify the data it receives from individual countries,” Rzońca said. “Countries have taken the funds and invested them, but we still do not know, for example, what the actual increase in renewable energy capacity is—whether it is real or exists only on paper.”
In last year’s report, the auditors stressed that if similar performance-based financing instruments are created in the future, funding should be more closely linked to measurable results and the rules governing such mechanisms should be clearly defined.
“The instrument is very complicated and untested. If it were to be implemented in the new multiannual financial framework, it would be a poor solution,” the MEP said. “This is already being discussed in meetings of the European Parliament’s Budget Committee. Countries are protesting against applying this RRF-type approach to the EU budget for 2028–2034.”
Under current discussions about the next EU long-term budget, investments and reforms supporting EU priorities could be financed through national and regional partnership plans for each member state. Funding could be made conditional on the successful implementation of these priorities.
“We would like the European Union to be more competitive and efficient, and for the borrowed money to be used effectively in individual countries,” Rzońca said. “But the European Court of Auditors concluded that while investments were made, the question remains whether they improved quality of life, strengthened the competitiveness of the EU economy, or lowered energy prices. Unfortunately, the answer appears to be no.”
The final deadline for achieving milestones and targets under the RRF is August 31, 2026. As the European Court of Auditors noted in May 2025, delays in meeting these objectives raise serious doubts about whether the program’s goals can ultimately be achieved.
“The implementation of milestones and targets varies widely across member states,” Rzońca said. “Some countries claim that thanks to these funds they have implemented major reforms. Poland, for example, highlights investments in offshore wind farms financed through the program. However, there has also been criticism that although Poland received the funds, they ultimately went to foreign companies—for example German firms producing equipment for wind farms or photovoltaic panels. Therefore I would wait with a final assessment.”
In mid-January 2026, Poland’s Minister of Funds and Regional Policy Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz announced on social media that Poland had already signed one million contracts under the National Recovery Plan (KPO), with total commitments reaching PLN 173 billion. Slightly more than half—PLN 90 billion—has been allocated to investments in the energy sector, including modern power networks and offshore wind projects in the Baltic Sea.
“The funds reached Poland two years later because of the rule-of-law mechanism, which meant that Poland lost both time and money due to inflation,” Rzońca said. “In my view, that was a wrong decision by the European Commission, which created unequal conditions for countries in responding to the post-pandemic crisis. All economies were affected by the pandemic. Saying that Poland received the funds later because of a lack of rule of law is simply false.”
The European Commission unblocked funds from Poland’s National Recovery Plan at the end of February 2024. By that time, some other member states had already spent a significant portion of their allocations.
“Unfortunately, Poland now has less time to implement the program. Milestones have been changed several times, and we still do not know exactly where all the funds have been allocated or what they were used for,” the MEP said. “We will only see the full picture after the final settlement. I am concerned that Poland may not be able to use all the available funds.”
He also pointed to disputes between one of Poland’s ministries and the European Commission over the reform of the National Labour Inspectorate (PIP). If the reform is not implemented, Poland may fail to meet a key milestone and lose several billion euros in funding.
Work on the reform of the Labour Inspectorate is currently underway in the Polish parliament. The first reading of the bill took place at the end of February. It is the second proposal from the Ministry of Labour and still raises controversy, particularly among businesses. The debate focuses mainly on new powers for the Labour Inspectorate to convert civil-law contracts—including B2B agreements—into standard employment contracts.
According to the European Parliament’s Research Service, Poland has already revised its National Recovery Plan three times since October 2025. The government is currently preparing another revision, while the next payment from the EU is expected in May. Poland is scheduled to receive three transfers of funds this year.
Among the investments financed through the recovery plan are the purchase of buses and trams, grants for insulating residential buildings and schools, investments in water and sewage networks, improvements to railway infrastructure, the purchase and modernization of trains, loan guarantees for small and medium-sized enterprises, support for healthcare facilities including geriatric care centers, and the expansion of childcare facilities.
Part of the recovery plan funding—PLN 22 billion—has been allocated to the Security and Defense Fund. This fund will finance, among other things, the construction and modernization of dual-use infrastructure, cybersecurity projects, the development of protective shelters, and civil protection infrastructure. The funds from this mechanism will remain available even after 2026, when the implementation of the National Recovery Plan formally ends.
