British taxpayers set to lose £100m after record Poland-EU funding scandal Some of those charged include employees of some of Poland's largest construction companies, and Polish prosecutors said the cartel managed to win at least one project, which was partially funded by the EU. The investigation is now focused on three specific road and highway construction projects worth 900 million euros (£773m), a new funding scandal record for the EU. EU officials have been concerned about the slow pace of the Polish investigation, that began in 2010, in a scandal that raise question of all Poland's EU funded road projects, totalling 8.6 billion (Â 10bn) since 2007. Elzbieta Bienkowska, Poland's minister for regional development, attacked the decision to turn off the cash as "incomprehensible." "Poland is the injured party in this case, because it is Polish investigators who discovered that there may have been - in two or three cases - a price-fixing deal by contractors," she said. The scandal could tilt the political balance against Poland and other countries pushing for increases in EU spending at a summit next Thursday against demands for Brussels budget cuts from David Cameron and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. "With public opinion in the UK and other net contributing states strongly in favour of cutting EU spending, this announcement could not have come at a worse time, given the resumption of EU budget talks next week," said Pawel Swidlicki of the Open Europe think tank. Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister, has threatened to veto a deal at the summit next week if the Prime Minister succeeds in winning cuts to EU regional and other budgets that benefit countries such Italy and Poland. The orgy of cuts that certain countries want to apply is inconsistent. Therefore, I'm not sure that it would be irresponsible for a country to disagree with a budget proposal which is inadequate," he said. Italy previously held the Brussels funding scandal record after being asked last year to repay a £307 million to the EU after a motorway project in the south of the country was found to be riven with mafia infiltration, corruption and kickbacks.