A European Commission audit has identified serious weaknesses in Greece’s system for spending European Union money on vocational training, raising the prospect that Athens could be required to surrender substantial amounts of EU funding.
A confidential Commission report dated Sept. 7, disclosed by Greek financial-news site Euro2day.gr, concluded that Greece’s management and control system was only “partially functioning” and required substantial improvement. Auditors examined a sample of projects financed through the EU’s European Social Fund Plus and Just Transition Fund.
Among their most consequential findings were procurement requirements that effectively prevented training companies elsewhere in the EU from competing for Greek contracts. Bidders were required to hold a Greek lifelong-learning license and have approved premises in Greece before submitting offers.
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The Commission considered those requirements disproportionate and contrary to EU equal-treatment principles. It proposed a 25% financial correction on affected expenditure.
The potential liability extends beyond the contracts sampled. Auditors characterized the risk as systemic and asked Greek authorities to determine whether similar restrictions appear in other programs managed by the same bodies. That raises the possibility of considerably larger corrections across a vocational-training market supported by hundreds of millions of euros in EU funds.
The audit also criticized the practice of combining training, consulting, internships and certification into large, single contracts. Such procurement, the Commission said, favored large operators and consortia while relegating smaller and specialized companies to subcontracting roles, potentially reducing competition and increasing market concentration.
Other findings pointed to weak oversight and unrealistic enrollment targets. In one project, only 209 unemployed people received training against a target of 1,600. Auditors also questioned paying similar hourly rates for prerecorded, asynchronous online courses and live instruction.
A €24 million program aimed at prisoners presented particularly severe problems. Auditors found that some participants received Greek-language training despite language barriers and that attendance and examination records were incomplete. Greek authorities withdrew the project before EU funds were disbursed.
The Greek Finance Ministry disputed key conclusions, saying the procurement framework had been developed with Commission guidance and that contracts had passed national scrutiny. Greece, it said, will consider challenging the findings.
