This seems to be almost completely funded by EU Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme[0].
Here is a list of ~17000 projects funded by Horizon 2020 (H2020 + H2020-EU.5 programme, with at least 1,000,000 EUR funding by EU): https://cordis.europa.eu/search?q=contenttype%3D%27project%2...
Of course, lot of those projects will go nowhere (and therefore seen as "waste" by some), that's bound to happen with any large scale program like this. But unless you make bets on a lot of projects, you won't get results like this submission.
Maybe some of the projects will go somewhere, but there are a good chunk where even the project leads set off from the outset with the goal of getting as much EU money as possible and closing down as quickly as possible when the money stops.
> The vast majority of the projects everyone
How many people are we talking about? 100? 1000?
If there is on average 20 people involved with each project who received funding, that would be 340,000 people in total. If you know 1000 people who are doing this scam, then you know 0.2% of the people involved in these projects.
To extrapolate that all the projects are similar scams to what your acquaintances are doing, seems a bit irrational.
But even so, that you know 1000 people, 100 people or even 10 people performing identical scams of government funds, seems unlikely, but even so, that you would know so many who are scammers, seems to say more about you than anything about the Horizon 2020 programme.
Maybe you should complain to your corrupt friends instead who are stealing from the government.
Part of the solution is better law enforcement, which would include whistleblowing on your corrupt friends. Part is better oversight - and here you should bring it up with your national government, since EU authorities typically have little power to impose that once money has been disbursed to local entities.
Where I lived in Ireland there was a "park" with some huge signs about how the EU was so generous to fund it.. But they failed to make an opening in the perimeter fence for people to actually enter. The paths just ended at a fence.
It was also totally useless as a park because it was a thin strip right next to a busy 4-lane road. You could hop the fence but it's useless trying to relax right beside a main road. Total cash grab from some real estate developer clearly.