"None of the projects we looked at had a needs assessment or even an analysis of the energy savings potential in relation to investments," Harald Woegerbauer, the ECA member responsible for the report, said in a press release.
"The member states were essentially using this money to refurbish public buildings while energy efficiency was, at best, a secondary concern," he said.
The planned payback period for investments in the audited energy efficiency investment projects in public buildings in Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Italy was 50 years on average and up to 150 years in some cases, the ECA said.
"This means that these funds were not spent in a sensible way because the lifetime of the refurbished components or buildings is lower and can, to a large extent, be considered to be lost on the energy efficiency point of view," it said.
Since 2000, the EU has allocated around 5 billion euros through its Cohesion Policy to co-finance energy efficiency measures in its member states. Both the European Commission and the member states are responsible for the sound financial management of these funds.
The audit was carried out in Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Italy because these countries had received the largest contributions from the Cohesion Fund and European Regional Development Fund for energy efficiency measures for the 2007-2013 period and had allocated the largest amounts to projects by 2009, the ECA said.
