ECA´s outputs in 2014, a year of significant renewal for the EU, its finances and institutions
2014 marked an important moment of change for the EU and its finances. The EU gave the European Central Bank the responsibility of supervising major banks in the euro area. It was the first year of a new multiannual financial framework governing the way the EU budget will be spent from 2014 to 2020. And there was a significant renewal of the membership of the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission, as well as the European Court of Auditors (ECA), where we welcomed six new Members.
In 2014 the European Court of Auditors produced a record number of 91 reports and opinions. These are the results of its audit work. It also took the initiative of delivering a new product, in the form of two landscape reviews based on its accumulated experience. The first such review highlighted the accountability and public audit challenges facing the EU, and the other underlined the risks to the EU's financial management. The ECA issued many recommendations relevant to improving EU financial management and accountability over the new 2014-2020 period.
ECA's president Vitor Caldeira says: "The new financial framework gives us an opportunity to change the way things are done. It is crucial to establish a culture of performance and added value. The Union must address these issues so that spending programmes can deliver - and be seen to deliver - added value for Europe and its citizens. The Court recommends shifting the emphasis to performance for the new programming period. This will mean setting clear objectives, with relevant indicators and results to be achieved, and examining the progress of policy through a mid-term review."
Stakeholders find the ECA's reports useful and impactful
The ECA invited the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and Committee on Budgets, the Council's Budget Committee, the main auditees and the supreme audit institutions of the EU Member States to rate the usefulness and impact of its reports published in 2014. The responses show that 94 % of these stakeholders value the ECA’s reports as being useful to their work, and 91 % consider them to have impact.
Implementation of ECA's recommendations
A key way the ECA contributes to improving EU financial management is through its recommendations. By the end of 2014, 91 % of the recommendations made in 2011, and 69 % of nearly six hundred recommendations issued from 2011 to 2014, had been implemented.
A new college, renewal of the President's term of office, appointment of a Member for institutional relations
Six new Members joined the ECA in 2014. On 23 January 2014 the college of Members re-elected Vítor Caldeira as ECA President for a third three-year term and appointed Ville Itälä as its Member for institutional relations.
New challenges
Under its 2013-2017 strategy, the ECA aims to focus its performance audits on topics which relate to the overall EU objectives of achieving added value and growth, as well as the EU’s response to global challenges. Those topics include the sustainability of public finances and the environment and climate change, both of them overarching themes which have been developed into the following priorities for the 2015 work programme: the financial and economic governance framework, the Europe 2020 strategy, the closure of the 2007-2013 programming period and the multiannual financial framework, disaster preparedness and response at EU level, youth employment, and energy security.
The ECA recently published an opinion on the European Fund for Strategic Investments, in which it stresses that the accountability arrangements must focus on tangible results and impacts as well as mere outputs. EU taxpayers require assurance that EFSI funds will be spent as judiciously as the EU budget. For this reason, the same principles of sound financial management should apply. The ECA recently welcomed Mr Juncker, President of the Commission, for talks about the institution's pivotal role as the EU's external auditor.
In 2015, the ECA intends to publish:
• the annual reports on the implementation of the EU budget and the European Development Funds;
• 53 specific annual reports on the EU's agencies and decentralised bodies;
• 30 special reports, most of them on performance-related topics.
2014 Activity report
18 MB |
