The EU does not properly manage some of its foreign diplomatic missions by wasting funds on unused or inadequate office space, according to the bloc’s accounting watchdog.

In a report published Thursday, the European Court of Auditors highlighted several problems in the European External Action Service’s management of its buildings around the world — including at its delegation to the U.N. in New York — and called on the EU’s diplomatic arm to look for buildings “which provide good value for money.”

Among the problems found by auditors in their study of the 140 EEAS delegations were offices that were too large for its local needs or were being left vacant, as well as situations in Asia where EU employees were working in garages and pre-fabricated cabins.

“We are not saying that money has been wasted,” Pietro Russo, one of the report’s authors, told POLITICO. “We are saying that value for money can be improved and our recommendations identify opportunities for savings.”

The report comes at a time of austerity for the five-year-old EEAS, which is trying to build a European diplomatic corps with one of the smallest budgets among EU institutions, while reducing staff by 1 percent per year since 2013. Its expenditure on delegation buildings in 2014 amounted to €165 million, out of a total budget of €530 million. 

The report noted the EEAS “has a long-term objective of purchasing more delegation office premises and arranged terms for borrowing up to €200 million … but it has not set up systems to manage its owned properties effectively.”

It found that the EEAS no longer uses 20 percent of the delegation buildings and residences it owns — 7 out of 33 office buildings and 6 out of 30 residences. Some are rented out to other organizations, other are simply unoccupied.

The report found other cases of financial mismanagement in which it said the EEAS has office space that is too big for its needs. In 2014, about 85 delegations exceeded the maximum space of 35 square meters per person, the report said. These included the delegation to the United Nations in New York, which has the highest office space per person (90 square meters).

“Reducing the average space per person would lead to savings on rent and running costs,” the report said.

Several buildings owned by the EEAS in Africa, including in Botswana and the Gambia, have been empty since 2004, while the EEAS has maintained unoccupied offices in South Africa and Cape Verde since 2012. In Tanzania, the report said, the ex-residence of the head of the delegation and a staff house have been unoccupied since 2009 at a cost of €25,000 per year for security, utilities, and gardening.

The most striking example of the EEAS’s mismanagement of its infrastructure is in Nepal, where a third of the EEAS staff have been working in “converted garages” since 2007 because of a “lack of space in the main building.” Another third have been working in secondhand, prefabricated cabins installed in the garden since 2009, “presenting a poor image of the delegation.”

In an official response included in the report, the EEAS acknowledged deficiencies in the management of its infrastructure, but argued that the institution needed to manage 180 office buildings and 140 official residences in 138 countries throughout the world, “each with its own specific legal system and property market.”

The institution also said it was operating under “well-known budget constraints.”

The auditors’ report urged the EEAS to implement its recommendations on improving spending “immediately” and to complete them “by the end of 2017.”