ADIF and European funds: 55% of contracts with irregularities — what suppliers must do

Key data

If your company has or aspires to have contracts with ADIF or ADIF-High Speed financed with funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), this resolution affects you directly. The Court of Auditors audited the management and control procedures of both entities and found that more than half of the contract modifications analyzed presented irregularities. The Joint Committee for Relations with the Court of Auditors approved on 16 April 2026 a resolution that requires the Government to implement a set of corrective measures with direct impact on the supplier chain.

What does this regulation establish?

The resolution approved by the Joint Committee urges the Government to implement a set of corrective measures in the management of European PRTR funds by ADIF and ADIF-High Speed. The requirements are grouped into five areas:

The CoFFEE platform (official PRTR monitoring system) must be integrated automatically with ADIF's internal systems to ensure fund traceability. Until now, part of that synchronization was done manually, which generated risks of error and opacity.

Regarding conflicts of interest, the reform requires that each person involved in a file sign a declaration specific to that particular file, not a generic annual declaration. This directly affects ADIF technicians and managers who evaluate bids, but also suppliers who must prove the absence of conflicts in their proposals.

Economic and operational impact

The most immediate impact for suppliers is mandatory external audit for contracts exceeding 1 million euros. This implies additional audit costs that will fall, wholly or partially, on the contractual chain, and greater documentary scrutiny on project execution.

The precise breakdown of ineligible expenses before requesting payments from the EU is another requirement with direct impact on contractors' cash flow: any expense that ADIF cannot justify as eligible to the European Commission may delay or block intermediate payments, affecting suppliers' payment schedules.

The anti-fraud plan against collusion in bids means that ADIF bidding processes will be subject to greater surveillance. Companies participating in ADIF tenders for PRTR projects must ensure that their bid preparation practices cannot be interpreted as coordination with competitors.

The elimination of manual processes and automation with CoFFEE also means that execution documentation that contractors submit to ADIF must be compatible with the formats and requirements of that platform, which may require adaptations in suppliers' project management systems.

Who does it affect?

• ADIF and ADIF-High Speed: as PRTR managing entities, they are the main parties obligated to implement all measures.
• Construction and engineering companies with work or service contracts financed with PRTR funds through ADIF.
• Technology and systems suppliers that provide solutions to ADIF under the PRTR.
• Consulting and audit firms that participate in technical evaluations or audits of contracts exceeding 1 million euros.
• State-owned resources (public business entities, state companies) that have intervened or intend to intervene in technical evaluations of PRTR files without explicit contractual coverage.
• Bidders in ADIF-PRTR tenders: any company that submits a bid in ADIF tenders for projects financed with European funds falls within the scope of the new anti-fraud plan.

Practical example

Imagine a medium-sized construction company that has a €3.5 million contract with ADIF for the renovation of railway infrastructure financed with PRTR funds. Until now, the company delivered work certificates and ADIF processed them internally before requesting reimbursement from the EU through CoFFEE.

With the new requirements, that contract exceeds the €1 million threshold, so it will be subject to mandatory external audit. The company must:

• Prepare execution documentation compatible with CoFFEE platform requirements (without intermediate manual processes).
• Ensure that all expenses charged to the contract are eligible under PRTR rules, since ADIF must break them down precisely before requesting payment from the EU.
• Verify that no ADIF technician involved in evaluating its bids or certificates has a conflict of interest declared specifically for that file.
• Review that its bid preparation practices cannot be questioned under the new anti-fraud plan against collusion.

A delay in any of these points can block the payment request to the EU and, consequently, delay the payments that ADIF makes to the contracting company.

What should companies do now?

1. Identify which ADIF contracts are financed with PRTR funds and whether they exceed the €1 million threshold, to anticipate mandatory external audit.
2. Review the eligibility of all expenses charged to PRTR contracts before ADIF requests the next payment from the EU, to avoid payment blocks or delays.
3. Adapt execution documentation to the formats required by the CoFFEE platform, eliminating dependencies on manual processes that will no longer be accepted.
4. Review conflict of interest declarations of those involved in each file: a generic declaration is no longer sufficient; it must be specific per file.
5. Internally audit bid preparation processes to ensure there are no practices that could be interpreted as collusion under the new anti-fraud plan.
6. Verify explicit contractual coverage if state-owned resources have been used for technical evaluations in PRTR files, as their participation without such coverage is prohibited.
7. Consult with a specialist in public procurement and European funds if any of the above points present risks or uncertainties in your specific situation.

Official source

View complete regulation in official source (BOE-A-2026-12497)

Notice: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific decisions, consult a qualified professional. Source: https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2026-12497