In five years, the EU Anti-Fraud Office has proposed sanctions in ten times more cases than the EU average.

In the case of Hungary, the EU Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, closed five cases in 2019, according to the organization’s annual report. The Office investigates the misuse of EU funds, in which case it can make a recommendation to the European Commission to recover aid and to national authorities to investigate.

In the case of Hungary, OLAF recommended sanctions in two of the five closed cases.

This list is led by Romanians, where the organization discovered abuses in nine of the 11 cases. This year’s report does not show how many of the procedures were notified by the authorities and how many; in the case of Hungary, the latter was typical.

Of course, not all irregular uses are abusive, but in the case of Hungary, both are concerning. Based on OLAF aggregation

Between 2015 and 2019, it was recommended to sanction 3.93% of the amount of EU subsidies paid from the Structural and Investment Funds.

(this normally means a refund of the money paid, the amount can be used by the country for other purposes). With imposing height, Hungary ranks first on this list, and in the case of Slovakia, which ranks second, this share is 0.53 percent. The EU average is 0.36 percent, one-tenth of Hungary’s result.

The result is not particularly surprising, as OLAF’s reports achieve the same result year after year. Furthermore, the rate is increasing, since the previous year irregularities were still detected at 3.84%.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of our inquiries (43 in this period) ended with a recommendation for reimbursement: a total of 235 such decisions were made in the 28 member states of the union, followed by Romanians in second place, with forty.

Slovakia maintains a list summarizing the total proportion of payments detected in the irregularities detected. For them, this ratio was 21.03 percent, for us 1.41. For a total of 485 million euros, the agency proposed a sanction, which closed 181 investigations and made 252 recommendations.

In light of OLAF procedures, it is interesting to see how many of the recommendations have been processed by the national authorities (the prosecution). In Hungary, this proportion is 47 percent; in 18 cases, the case has not reached this point.

However, the name OLAF is perhaps better known in Hungary than in any other Member State: both the Metro 4 case and the Elios case were initiated by OLAF, but while the former was a case of infinite duration, the latter was repeatedly dismissed by the prosecution. would be. The government did not defend the truth before the EU, although the support was withdrawn, but it was paid to the beneficiaries by the state with state funds, with money from Hungarian taxpayers.



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The Director General of the Union Anti-Fraud Office met with Polt Polt


hvg.hu
At home

The Attorney General’s Office issued a notice of the meeting. The two organizations have a good working relationship, they wrote.

Final judgment was delivered in a case based on an OLAF report


hvg.hu
Economy

In theory, medical devices were bought for 466 million guilders, practically 101 million were spent on them. The difference fell on the account of an offshore company.