Patras: RRF public administration spending delivered significant results in only 36% of the measures that the European Court of Auditors examined, according to Special Report 29/2026, published on 21 October. Member states earmarked €49.1 billion of the Recovery and Resilience Facility for public administration, about 8.5% of the €577 billion total. The auditors say the money produced far less structural change than the programme promised.
The audit covered reforms and investments in 15 member states and looked more closely at Czechia, Germany, Greece and Spain. The Commission’s database lists 400 RRF measures linked to 48 country-specific recommendations on public administration and digitalisation. For roughly two thirds of the examined measures, the auditors found limited outcomes or no supporting evidence.
Measurement is part of the problem. Only 43% of the measures had adequate result indicators, so it is often unclear whether they improved procedures, costs, services or governance. Without that evidence, RRF public administration spending is hard to defend and harder to repeat.
The record on recommendations is weak as well. None of the 2019 and 2020 public administration recommendations was fully addressed. Just over a third were addressed to a large extent, more than half only marginally, and some not at all, while only 14% of the governance-related recommendations were addressed to a large extent.
Governments tended to choose quick initiatives, especially digitalisation, and left longstanding structural problems alone. The Technical Support Instrument added little, because most of its projects had a broad scope rather than a link to specific reforms. Its schedules were poorly coordinated with the RRF, and the Commission did not prioritise projects that tackled delayed reforms.
Ivana Maletić, the ECA Member who led the audit, said the RRF could have been used more strategically to make public administrations stronger. In her words, the opportunity to address longstanding structural challenges was largely missed. She added that the EU has a chance to learn from these shortcomings in the next budget.
The findings land at an awkward moment for the Commission. The Recovery and Resilience Facility was presented as a tool that pairs investment with reform, and public administration was meant to be one of its clearest examples. The audit suggests that RRF public administration measures often favoured projects that were easy to deliver over those that were hard to change.
Digitalisation illustrates the pattern. A new online portal can be built and counted within the facility’s deadlines, whereas reforming recruitment, procurement or governance takes years of political effort. Because many measures lacked adequate result indicators, completion was easier to show than outcomes, and RRF public administration spending reflects that bias.
That lesson matters for the 2028-2034 negotiations. The auditors conclude that the performance monitoring proposed for the next long-term budget only partly addresses the deficiencies they identified. Negotiators who want to avoid repeating the RRF public administration experience will need to tie money to measurable reforms before they sign off on the next framework.
