In 2019, the EU Contact Committee launched a parallel audit of Medium-Term Budgetary Frameworks (MTBFs) within its Fiscal Policy Audit Network. The SAIs of Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden took part, completing the relevant national audits and assessments mostly in 2020 and 2021. The joint report collates and analyses the findings. The parallel audit focused on central government budgeting and on planning or forecasting expenditure at least three years forward. The audit aimed to assess the practical implementation of medium-term expenditure objectives and forecasts in budget planning, and their functionality in national and EU contexts.

The report has been prepared by the Contact Committee’s Task Force on Banking Union and sets out the findings of a parallel audit on banking resolution at national level. The report is the result of parallel audit work carried out by the SAIs of Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The task force was co-chaired by the SAIs of Germany and the Netherlands.

The Contact Committee, based on the work of its former working groups on public procurement, publishes since 2008 a regularly updated toolkit for auditing public procurement processes. In 2014, the European Parliament adopted three directives that revise and update the public procurement law to be transposed into the national law of all EU Member States. These directives aim at using public procurement in the context of wider public policies, such as innovation, environmental and social ones, increasing the efficiency of public spending, reinforcing legal certainty and integrating the case law on public procurement that the Court of Justice of the European Union has established. The present update reflects these changes.

The report is based on a parallel audit on the “prudential supervision of medium-sized and small (’less significant’) institutions in the European Union after the introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism”. In the audit, 5 Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) assessed the regulatory framework governing small and medium-sized banks in the EU as well as the design and conduct of prudential supervision. Two overarching findings emerged:
(1) The way in which banking regulation is transposed, and banking supervision of Less Significant Institutions (LSIs) is designed and conducted, varies across different EU Member States.
(2) Since the introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism – the first pillar of the European Banking Union – gaps in SAIs’ ability to audit banking supervision have emerged. This applies to national SAIs as well as the European Court of Auditors.
The Contact Committee urges actors at European and national level to strengthen the external audit of the public task of banking supervision. In a policy area where trillions of euros are at stake, accountability and democratic control should not be compromised.

The report is based on a parallel audit on “Contribution of the Structural Funds to the Europe 2020 Strategy in the areas of Employment and/or Education”. For the audit, 11 SAIs evaluated the design of Operational Programmes and analyzed the implementation of projects. They found that, overall, Operational Programmes provide an appropriate basis to contribute to the Europe 2020 strategy. However, they found weaknesses in the design of the Operational Programmes and implementation process which should be addressed by the Commission and the Member States.“

The Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of Finland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden have co-operated in a parallel audit on underlying risks to sustainable public finances. The project was endorsed by the Contact Committee at its meeting in June 2015 and the Swedish National Audit Office has chaired the group. The aim of the parallel audit was to draw attention to risks to sustainable public finances and to audit how governments deal with such issues within three similar processes involving recommendations from international organisations. This audit is based on reviews of countryspecific reports and recommendations from the European Union (EU), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued in the period 2011–2015, (the audited period). The participating SAIs have mapped the various recommendations to their respective country as well as the government responses to these recommendations. They have furthermore audited the public availability of the recommendations at national level as well as national follow-up procedures. A number of SAIs have moreover assessed the effectiveness of government measures.