European Court of Auditors. Special report 14/2024: Green transition. Unclear contribution from the Recovery and Resilience Facility

The Recovery and Resilience Facility provided member states with an incentive to invest in the green transition. They planned to spend around €275 billion on climate action as part of the green transition pillar. However, our analysis revealed shortcomings in the Facility’s design and implementation of green transition measures. This led to potential overestimations of amounts allocated to climate action, discrepancies between planning and practice, and little indication of the measures’ actual contribution to the green transition. There is no requirement in the legislation to assess the Facility’s contribution to the EU’s climate objectives, nor report on actual spending, limiting the relevance for stakeholders. We make several recommendations to improve design and effectiveness of EU funds relevant for green transition.