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EU spending totalled €136.4 billion in 2016, or around €267 for every citizen. This amounts to around 1% of EU gross national income and represents approximately 2% of total public spending in EU Member States. The EU budget is agreed annually — within the context of seven year financial frameworks — by the European Parliament and the Council.
Ensuring that the budget is properly spent is primarily the responsibility of the European Commission, along with the other EU institutions and bodies. But for around 80% of spending – principally agriculture and cohesion – this responsibility is shared with the Member States.
The ECA´s auditors test samples of transactions to provide statistically-based estimates of the extent to which revenue and the different spending areas (groups of policy areas) are affected by error.