Of the €3.37 billion allocated to this country, only €374 million, or 11 percent, has been disbursed to recipients.

Delays in use of these funds have been attributed to several factors, including Covid-related disruptions, bureaucratic processes, and the prioritization of other urgent needs.

Despite this, the government maintains that these funds will still get used and will not be lost.

In the 2021 state budget, a total of €1.45 billion in outside funds was planned, of which €0.91 billion in external subsidies was used, leaving €540 million unused.

In 2022, €1.46 billion was planned, while €1.13 billion in external subsidies was used, leaving €330 million unused.

Meanwhile with the 2023 budget, €1.62 billion was planned, and €1.31 billion in external subsidies was used, leaving €310 million unused.

The National Audit Office (Riigikontroll) pointed out in 2022 that, since 2017, the state has left an average of €318 million in EU subsidies planned in the state budget unutilized each year.

in 2023, Ermo Liedemann, senior auditor at the audit office, noted: "Delays in using subsidy funds have meant, in conditions of rising prices, that Estonia achieves fewer planned school buildings, roads, health centers, and other essential projects with the same amount of money."

"Although the pace of using external subsidies increased significantly at the end of last year [2022], it is necessary to accelerate or at least maintain the pace of using the funds; otherwise, some of the unused money may be lost altogether," Liedemann went on at the time.

In response to a social media post by journalist Raimo Poom, Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi (Reform) wrote: "The amount is fixed. The pace has returned to normal; this period's start was slowed by other priorities such as Covid."

"I wouldn't criticize the bureaucracy too much, given how much users themselves cause delays—fortunately less so in Estonia," the minister added.

Poom had highlighted that the state has failed to meet the planned use of EU funds in the budget and that the pace of disbursing subsidies has slowed.

By Poom's calculations, approximately €300 million in EU subsidies remain unused by the state at the end of each year, with their use deferred to the following year.

Tomingas noted that Estonia ranks third in the EU for commitments on EU subsidies—of the €3.37 billion, Estonia has committed to €2.3 billion, or 68 percent, through project selection and signed agreements.

"When we talk about the pace and volume of fund usage, the basis for calculation is the proportion of commitments made," said Tomingas. "Essentially, €2.3 billion is currently circulating in the market for the implementation of supported projects, investments, and measures. This figure places us third in Europe. The €374 million figure reflects the expenditure documents submitted to the state for reimbursement."

When asked by ERR how much of the planned EU funding remained unused in the past year, Triin Tomingas, head of the Ministry of Finance's external resources department, noted that the European Commission approved Estonia's operational program for using these funds in October 2022, among the first in Europe.

Tomingas said: "Today, we can say that the implementation of the operational program has gained good momentum, and the measures have been launched. This is despite a nearly two-year delay during which Europe focused on rapidly rolling out the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) due to the Covid crisis, while negotiations on structural funds were temporarily put on hold."

Tomingas emphasized that unused portions of funds can be carried over to the next fiscal year.

As reported by ERR News, of the €953 million allocated to Estonia from the (RRF), less than half has been used.

The deadline for using these subsidies is the end of August 2026.

Estonia receives support from the RRF and from the REACT-EU emergency crisis fund—a combined total of approximately €1.1 billion.

The amount of unused funds as of January 20 this year remains unknown.

In response to ERR's inquiry about how much of the planned EU subsidies went unused last year, while Tomingas said this would be determined during the preparation of the annual financial report, she provided data from previous years as noted above.

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