Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

15. Under the Treaty, the Court is required to assist Parliament in exercising its powers of control over the implementation of the budget. How would you further improve the cooperation between the Court and the European Parliament (in particular, its Committee on Budgetary Control) to enhance both the public oversight of the general spending and its value for money?

The relationship between the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament is clearly defined in Article 287 of the TFEU. The ECA plays an important role in providing the European Parliament with relevant and systematic information about the implementation of the EU budget. I see this requirement not only as an obligation as per the Treaties but also as an important need and a natural process for the crucial roles that both institutions play in protecting EU’s financial interests.

The constant dialogue between the ECA and the EP, and the Committee on Budgetary Control in particular, has a very high added value for me. Both the Court and the Parliament play their respective roles in monitoring and exercising the necessary control on the EU budget. The ECA provides the expert input and information to the EP which takes the political decisions, based on the analysis and recommendations provided by the Court.

What I find particularly important, with the beginning of a new parliamentary term, is that the ECA creates a strong connection and engages with CONT members with regards to all areas of ECA’s work. If I am approved by the CONT Committee as member of the ECA, I would spare no effort to work on continuing and further strengthening the excellent relationship with CONT.

The process of communication is very important and while the ECA is an independent institution, I believe that good coordination with CONT and the EP will contribute to better targeting the priority areas for audits and thus will provide Members of CONT with relevant information in specific areas of interest in a timely manner.

If confirmed, I would listen carefully to your comments, concerns and suggestions. I believe keeping good contact with the Chair, vice chairs, the coordinators and with the individual members, as well as their teams is crucial for enhancing the cooperation between both sides.

16. What added value do you think performance auditing brings and how should the findings be incorporated in management procedures?

According to the INTOSAI implementation guidelines for performance auditing, the main objective of performance auditing is to constructively promote economical, efficient and effective governance. It also contributes to accountability and transparency.

The added value of this reporting is becoming increasingly important due to the growing need for informed decision-making and the complexity of the financial landscape. As explained earlier in my previous answers, through the 3Es the auditors provide objective assessment whether:

- The resources are optimally used, be it in due time, quality and quantity and at most economical cost.

- Through the available resources a maximum output is achieved. The evaluation looks at the link between resources and output.

- The achieved results meet the initial objectives.

In this respect, performance audits can help decision makers to make informed choices through an evidence-based analysis and clear recommendations how to address deficiencies. With timely and relevant recommendations that are applied consistently, decision makers can improve processes, optimise and streamline procedures that could lead to savings and better value for money. Performance audits could highlight and promote good practices.

They can play an important role also in the prevention and crisis management as through identifying areas of underperformance or potential risks, they could point out and mitigate issues before they escalate. All these elements could ultimately improve policy developments in a continuous and sustainable way. I believe that through performance auditing we contribute significantly towards building a stronger trust from the stakeholders and taxpayers.

For the future, I see these elements gaining even a greater role in the context of new funding models linked to performance. The challenge for the SAIs would be to quickly address these emerging needs by developing methods and practices that would allow with the limited resources available to address in a flexible way the growing demands for areas to be audited. I would underline the role of digitalisation and AI that could help optimize some processes but in the performance assessment it is critical to keep a human-centred element in the evaluation as it goes beyond standard compliance checks.

17. How could cooperation between the Court of Auditors, the national audit institutions and the European Parliament (Committee on Budgetary Control) on auditing of the EU budget be improved?

As guardians of the control over public funding, all three types of institutions are committed to protecting the taxpayer’s interest and thus enhancing the trust of the citizens. Besides the complexity of the financial landscape there are a number of emerging challenges such as new priorities resulting from geopolitical tensions, crises and wars near the EU borders that require even closer cooperation between the institutions that share the same goal. The increasing risks before the EU public spending will require even more and faster joint efforts to provide timely and adequate responses to these challenges making sure that the funding reaches beneficiaries as quickly as possible, to achieve its intended goals, however without any compromise to the rules. Today, still more than 80% of the EU programmes are subject of shared management between the European Commission and the Member States, therefore a good partnership between the European and national level is key.

I believe that in this context the ECA could have a central and very active role as it has the CONT Committee as a main counterpart in the EP and keeps the important relations with the national SAIs within the Contact Committee. We have already many good examples of bilateral cooperation with SAIs on specific audit topics. During my time in the ECA, I have led a series of audits on youth unemployment and youth guarantee that have served as a basis for a fruitful exchange with national SAIs, led to the organisation of joint conferences and sharing of good practices.

The relationship with the CONT committee is regular and of prime importance not only because of its role for the discharge procedure but also regarding all special reports, opinions and reviews that the Court issues.

It is possible to find an intersection point between these different relationships when there is a common topic, a common challenge that everyone is facing and looking for ways to address. I would recall from my experience as Chair of the Audit Quality Control Committee that one such common subject was the auditing of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. From all perspectives, for all of us this was a new subject and sharing experiences was very much sought and proved to be very useful. The role of the ECA could be to help identify such common subjects and facilitate organising joint meetings, conferences or workshops where knowledge and ideas could be shared; that would lead to our common better understanding of the problems with the aim of improving our efficiencies and optimising the use of resources.

18. How would you further develop the reporting of the ECA to give the European Parliament all the necessary information on the accuracy of the data provided by the Member States to the European Commission?

I find it of utmost importance to ensure that the European Parliament receives most accurate and relevant data needed for its decision making. And the ECA plays an important role in providing strong audit assurances for this process in an even more challenging and changing environment. This is also one of the main goals in ECA’s audit strategy.

Members states provide data to the Commission through many different national databases, business and tax registers and public procurement platforms. The responsibility whether this data is correct and reliable lays first on the Commission which in turn has a complicated mix of IT systems and datasets. The ECA has continuously recommended for simplification and improvement of this data accuracy.

Clearly, one way to address this gap is though digitalisation of the shared management approach. It could provide more standardisation through common definitions and concepts as well as more extensive use of emerging technologies, including AI; data sharing among the entities involved in the management of EU funds could also bring more efficiency in the process. It is also important to note that the benefits of digitalisation would work only if all parties in the process are committed to it and take active part in its implementation, otherwise the effect would be as weak as its weakest link.

The Court has advocated strongly for relying more on digital audits while fully realising that the digitalisation and standardisation of IT tools and data governance are not equally advanced in all Member States.

I strongly believe that the ECA should continue to focus its efforts on further promoting the benefits of digitalisation for the transparency and protection of the EU budget.

Other questions

19. Will you withdraw your candidacy if Parliament’s opinion on your appointment as Member of the Court is unfavourable?

Yes.