The Protection of the EU’s Financial Interests and Pandemic Emergency Tools: an Analysis of the Control Mechanism between the EU and the Member States

The paper examines three case studies: RescEU, SURE, and EU support for SMEs. These case studies represent three relevant EU actions that responded to the first phase of the Covid-19 emergency in the sectors of health, work, and economic support for businesses. The main research questions are: What kind of actions have been financed in these sectors with EU funds? What kind of administrative checks were carried out for these EU emergency funds? The paper looks at these issues from a multilevel perspective: starting from the EU framework it reaches national levels, especially Italy, Poland, Belgium, and Germany. In the conclusions, the paper seeks to understand how promptly the EU emergency actions were taken and whether the planned controls prevented fraud.