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Brussels - Billions of euros in EU funding intended to help struggling farmers build better lives is being misspent, the European court of auditors said on Tuesday.
The auditors said about €7.0bn ($9.35bn) earmarked in the 2007-2013 budget to help reduce poverty and provide jobs in rural areas has been poorly allocated because member governments failed to properly gauge the suitability of projects.
"In practical terms, this led to situations where almost any kind of project could be accommodated under the objectives set," said auditor Jan Kindt, responsible for the report.
In a statement, auditors said that in some member states, "all eligible projects were funded where sufficient budget was available regardless of how the project was assessed in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency.
"Only later in the period when funding was tight, better projects were rejected," it said.
Worse, the auditors said that in many cases, their investigators found projects "would have gone ahead even without EU funding, thus resulting in an inefficient use of limited EU funds."
The audit covered six member states -- the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Britain.
The EU Court of Auditors checks the accounts of all EU institutions.
