EU misspent over 6 billion euros last year

The EU misspent 6.3 billion euros ($6.8 billion) in 2014, the bloc's financial watchdog said on Tuesday, urging Brussels to take a "wholly new approach" to make its budget more responsive to shocks like the migration crisis.

Examples of badly spent funds included underused airports of which only around half were worthy of EU funds, and aid paid for farmland in Spain that was actually being used as a motocross track, the European Court of Auditors said in a report.

The independent ombudsman urged the 28-nation European Union to be more flexible and free up unspent funds so they can be used where needed, such as on dealing with the wave of refugees and migrants coming to Europe.

"We call for a whole new approach -- we cannot afford to do business as usual," Vitor Caldeira, the president of the independent ombudsman, told journalists as he launched the report.

The report said the so-called error rate for spending fell slightly to 4.4 percent of the EU's 142.5 billion euro budget in 2014 from a revised 4.5 percent in 2013, but was still far above the acceptable level of 2.2 percent.

Caldeira said the report came at a "particularly difficult time", with the EU facing major challenges ranging from the struggle to create jobs and growth and dealing with Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War II.

"Decision makers must align the budget better with the EU's long-term strategic priorities and make it more capable of responding in a crisis," he said.

The EU's budget has long been a source of debate, and particularly now, with the economy only weakly recovering after years of austerity and eurosceptic parties on the rise in many countries.

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