The ECA says it plans to cover a broad range of issues that reflect the challenges the EU currently faces and focus increasingly on assessing whether EU policies and programmes achieve their objectives and add value.

The auditors plan to assess the implementation of the emergency relocation scheme for refugees and border control arrangements and review the EU’s nascent defence policy. They also aim to examine the effectiveness of cross-border healthcare, outline problems in the EU’s approach to measuring vehicles’ emissions and analyse whether EU climate and energy policies make use of ‘green’ criteria when deciding which investment to carry out.

Their audit priorities will also include tasks in the areas of pesticides, investments in road infrastructure connecting European regions, EU funding in the field of culture and state aid for banks.

The ECA points out its work programme comes at an important time for the EU, in the context of the negotiation of its future long-term spending plan for the years 2021 to 2027, which will need to be agreed by end of 2019. Next year will also see the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, a newly elected European Parliament and a new Commission.

The EU’s annual budget is around €140bn (£123bn). This corresponds to about 1% of the gross national income of all the EU’s member states, or about 2% of their total government spending.

ECA 2018 work programme is here

Report by Pat Sweet