EU-funded investments in airports have not generated the expected results and have produced poor value for money, a report by the European Court of Auditors has found.
The study said that due to a lack of adequate planning and forecasting, some of the funded airports were situated too close to one another, while some of the construction projects were too big for the numbers of planes and passengers involved.
Auditors examined investment projects at 20 airports in Estonia, Greece, Italy, Poland and Spain, which received more than €600 million of EU money from 2000 to 2013. They found that only half of these airports could show the need for EU-funded investment and funded infrastructure was “often underused”, with €38 million not being used at all.
David Gauke, the financial secretary to the treasury, said: “This just highlights once again how crucial it is that EU funding is spent properly and not wasted. There needs to be practical steps to improve the management of EU funds and ensure value for money for taxpayers.”
The report showed only half of the airports audited increased passenger numbers, while, for more than half of them, air traffic forecasts significantly over-estimated increases. In Cordoba, for example, fewer than 7 000 passengers travelled in 2013, against the 179 000 forecast. In addition, for most airports there was little evidence of an improvement in customer service or of regional socio-economic benefits, such as the creation of additional jobs.
Seven of the airports, mostly those with fewer than 100 000 passengers per year, are not financially self-sustainable and will struggle to remain in operation without more public money. In Greece, for example, Kastoria’s revenue of €176,000 for 2005-2012 was dwarfed by the €7.7 million it cost to keep the airport open over the same period. The auditors concluded that a further €16.5 million invested in an extension to Kastoria’s runway (which has never been used for the type of aircraft for which it was built) cannot be considered an effective use of public funds, the report said.
The auditors also found that funding by some of the Member States had no strategic long-term development plan and that the funding was “insufficiently” supervised by the Commission, which “does not know which airports are receiving funding or what sums are involved”.
ECA member George Pufan said: “European air traffic is set to double by 2030. If Europe is going to meet this extra demand, both the Commission and the Member States must improve the way they invest in our airports by funding only those which are profitable and for which there is a real investment need.”