The Austrian state of Salzburg must pay a fine of 26.82 million euros ($31 million) for having failed to prevent a major financial speculation scandal, the Council of the European Union decided Monday.

The EU found Salzburg's financial oversight authority and political bodies guilty of serious negligence on controlling financial data.

"This enabled the budget unit of the state office to misrepresent and conceal financial transactions," the Council said in a statement.

The scandal, which came to light in 2012, centered on a financial bureaucrat who had used public funds for several years to make high-risk investments on behalf of Salzburg, the western Austrian state that includes the regional capital of the same name.

As a result, Austria reported skewed government debt data to the European Union.

Her speculation deals cost the state of Salzburg 500 million euros in losses and tax arrears.

The woman was found guilty of breach of trust and sentenced to wear an electronic ankle monitor for six months.

In 2013, when an early state election was called because of the scandal, political power in Salzburg shifted from the social democrats to the conservatives.

Monday's EU decision is the second time that the bloc has imposed a fine for data manipulation under fiscal governance rules that were adopted in 2011.

In 2015, the Council fined Spain 18.93 million euros for the manipulation of deficit data in the country's autonomous Valencia region.