During raids by 150 investigators in Italy, Austria, Romania and Slovakia, many valuable items were seized: a Lamborghini sports car, Rolex watches, gold, jewelry. And more than twenty arrests were made. The suspected fraud amounts to 600 million euros.
Omtzigt: ‘Tighten control’
It also happened in Greece this week. Ten companies are suspected of having tampered with no less than 2.5 billion euros from the corona recovery fund. “A very serious matter,” says VVD MP Eelco Heinen. “If this turns out to be true, the money must be recovered.”
“Intense,” responds Tom van der Lee of GroenLinks-PvdA. NSC MP Pieter Omtzigt also calls it ‘very worrying’ that fraud is taking place with the fund on such a large scale, and attributes this to inadequate control. “There is still a lot of money in the fund. Tighten that control.” BBB and CDA think exactly the same way.
The investigations in Italy and Greece are two notable cases, but certainly not the only ones. In 2023, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) had already launched more than 200 investigations into irregularities with money paid out from the corona recovery fund.
Fraud and scam
The corona recovery fund was devised in 2020 and aims to help European economies get back on their feet after the blow of the corona pandemic. Of the 800 billion euros in the fund, approximately 225 billion euros have been paid out so far.
The House of Representatives believes that control over the hundreds of billions still in the pot really needs to be improved. “Fraud and scams involving money from the recovery fund must be tackled head on,” says CDA MP Inge van Dijk. And every euro that has been wrongly paid out must be ‘recovered down to the last cent’, Henk Vermeer of BBB agrees.
Outgoing Finance Minister Steven van Weyenberg calls it positive that many fraud cases are coming to light. But the VVD sees that as proof that the entire corona recovery fund was a bad idea. As far as Heinen is concerned, it is ‘once but never again’.
2024-04-13 09:45:27
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