Slovakia is having to forfeit €1.2 million in EU Recovery Fund money disbursed during the coronavirus pandemic because the European Commission says the Ministry of Education failed to prevent and address a conflict of interest.

The case dates back to 2021, when funding for a regional university was awarded by a member of its own board of trustees. 

“We confirm that this is the first case of a reduction of support under the Recovery Plan in the event of a serious irregularity,” a spokesperson for the Commission told Euractiv Slovakia.

The call for proposals centred on the development of university clusters and set out a plan for collaboration between two regional institutions: the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, the lead partner, and the University of Trnava, the project partner.

Both universities claim they were unaware of any conflict of interest. The names of project evaluators appointed by the Ministry of Education have not been made public, and the board of trustees at the University of Trnava has since undergone staff changes.

The conflict of interest was discovered in a 2022 audit by the European Commission.

Slovakia could have retained the EU funds by recovering €1.2 million from the universities involved. However, the Ministry of Education refused, claiming that the universities were not at fault.

As a result, the European Commission will deduct the full amount from Slovakia’s next Recovery Fund payment – a move without precedent.

The Slovak Ministry of Education, which managed the project call, has placed the blame on ex-Minister Branislav Gröhling, now a leader of the liberal opposition party SaS.

“At the time of the call for proposals and the evaluation of applications for funding, the ministry did not have a procedure in place that would have required evaluators to make a mandatory declaration of the absence of a conflict of interest,” the ministry said in a statement to Euractiv Slovakia, adding that he implemented such a procedure after taking office.

Gröhling did not respond to questions put to him for this article.

(cs, jp)