€7M of suspect spending by EASO highlighted by EU Court of Auditors in report

More than a tenth of the payments made by the EU’s asylum agency last year, amounting to €7.7 million, involved non-compliance with EU financial rules, according to the body that audits the finances of EU agencies.

The European Court of Auditors points to “the critical situation in the human resources” at the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) as contributing to its budgetary malpractice — mainly relating to public procurement and recruitment.

Politico reports how the executive director of the agency, José Carreira, resigned following a POLITICO investigation into allegations of staff harassment, including “psychological violence,” and an investigation by the bloc’s anti-fraud office.

The auditors “issued an adverse opinion due to material and systematic instances of non-compliance of payments with the Office’s Financial Regulation and other applicable rules and provisions, mainly related to public procurement and recruitment procedures underlying payments.”

In general, however, the Luxembourg-based Court of Auditors gave the 41 EU agencies and other bodies a clean bill of health for their 2017 accounts, according to its annual report.

Politico