STRASBOURG — The European anti-fraud watchdog is considering opening an investigation into the secretary-general of the far-right Patriots for Europe group over the alleged misuse of €4 million of European Parliament funds, according to a spokesperson for the office.
In summer 2025, the Parliament’s finance department found that the now-defunct Identity and Democracy group — then home to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Santiago Abascal’s Vox, and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’ ANO party — had misspent some €4.3 million between 2019 and 2024. This triggered a criminal investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is ongoing. The ID group was accused of breaching public tender rules when awarding contracts for advertisements, community management and printing services.
After the 2024 European election, the ID group disbanded, with a majority of its members and staff absorbed into the new Patriots for Europe group.
Transparency International on April 24 asked the EU’s anti-fraud office (OLAF) to open a probe into administrative failings in the case and recommended disciplinary action against former Belgian MEP and Secretary-General of the Patriots group Philip Claeys, according to a letter seen by POLITICO. Transparency International says Claeys was responsible because he signed off on the spending.
“OLAF can confirm that we received the incoming information and are currently looking into the matter,” the office’s spokesperson said. “We cannot comment further at this stage.”
The spokesperson said “the fact that OLAF is examining the matter does not mean that OLAF has opened an investigation” and that “it is only after such an initial assessment that OLAF decides whether or not to open an investigation.”
Transparency International also said that OLAF should examine whether, given Claeys was ID’s secretary-general and now holds the same role with the Patriots — and still has control over EU funds — his conduct “gives rise to ongoing risks to the Union budget.”
The Parliament’s budgetary control committee in September 2025 asked the Parliament’s secretary-general to recover the funds from the Patriots.
The Patriots said at the time in a post on X that the group was the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt” and that it isn’t the same legal entity as ID, whose accounts from previous financial years had already been closed.
In November 2025, Parliament’s leadership said it would wait for the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) findings before taking action.
But with that probe still ongoing, the full Parliament will vote on an audit that urges the administration to take “all the necessary measures” without waiting for the prosecutor’s investigation — including withholding funds from the Patriots. “Criminal proceedings should not be automatically used as a generalized justification for possible inaction,” the 2024 European Parliament audit, to be voted on in plenary on Wednesday, reads.
“At the moment, there is still uncertainty about what the European Parliament is going to do with this case of fraud,” said Greens group co-chair Terry Reintke. “We are talking about millions of EU taxpayers’ money … the investigation should be sped up so that actually people will face accountability for this fraudulent use of EU funds.”
The Patriots group and Claeys did not reply to requests for comment.
