EUROSAI. Magazine N21 - 2015

EUROSAI 1990 2015 25 EUROPEAN ORGANISATION OF SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTIONS 25 th ANNIVERSARY OF EUROSAI 50 www.eurosai.org · N.º 21 - 2015 Twenty-five years mark the history of EUROSAI if we consider the date of its founding Congress in Madrid in November 1990, whose anniversary is commemorated in a special way this year. The Berlin Declaration, adopted at the XIII INTOSAI Congress in 1989, represented the final push that laid the foundation stone for the last Regional Group of EUROSAI to be created. But this was only the last and formal step that finally brought EUROSAI its own existence and charter, which gave it specific personality as the European Regional Group. It was entrusted with the responsibility to unite its members, with full respect for their diversity, and to promote the individual and collective growth thereof while contributing to the INTOSAI community, thus offering an exponentially greater value than the sum of its parts. Indeed, the EUROSAI project was already alive and kicking more than twenty years before its foundation. The commitment made by European Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) to INTOSAI was evident from the beginning, although it was not until the late 1960s when the first, still isolated, initiatives, advocated for the value of work carried out in common as a valuable tool to strengthen audit over of public funds in Europe. The VIII INTOSAI Congress, held in Spain in 1974, marked an important step forward in this process. Over a quarter of a century provides sufficient perspective for a stopover on the way and looking back, but primarily to look forward. It is a good time to reflect and assess how far EUROSAI adapts to its members’ current needs; how it is contributing to the good governance and responsible auditing of the public sector by means of modern, strong and qualified SAIs; and which future commitments have to be assumed. I. Current Challenges Facing Supreme Audit Institutions The context in which EUROSAI was born and took its first steps has nothing to do with current economic and social realities and citizens’ demands, which require States to adopt new management formulas to be more effective and efficient when achieving goals and implementing programmes, greater technical rigour and economy in management. Regularity and clarity in public finances, accountability, transparency and efficiency have become the key principles of public management. Systems can no longer be limited geographically but rather globalisation processes require of them the flexibility needed to integrate and remain open to downward and upward coordination and cooperation towards local and regional levels as well as towards supranational communities. The latest economic-financial crisis has shown that what feels local somewhere on the planet becomes global on the antipodes the complete opposite on a world scale, and has done so in such a resounding way that it has moved even the deepest pillars, calling into question the validity of the system itself in terms of how it was being implemented. SAIs cannot stand aside from these changes, but rather must adapt to them and even get behind them from the performance of their functions. The actions taken by audit entities cannot focus only on assessing what has been done, but must also play a key system feedback role through recommendations synchronised with reality. SAIs have to shed light on public management, analysing and verifying it, yes, but also assessing its impact on public finances, anticipating risks and suggesting improvements EUROSAI: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF FRUITFUL COOPERATION TO STRENGTHEN EXTERNAL AUDIT María José de la Fuente y de la Calle Member of the Spanish Court of Audit