EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 29 September 2009 
on the public audit of Lietuvos bankas 
(CON/2009/77) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 25 August 2009 the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Audit Committee of 
the Seimas (Parliament) of Lithuania for an opinion on a draft law amending Article 14 of the Law on the State Audit Office
1 (hereinafter the ‘draft law’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an  opinion is based on Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing the 
European Community and the third indent of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 
on the consultation of the European Central Bank by  national authorities regarding draft legislative 
provisions2, as the draft law relates to Lietuvos bankas.  In accordance with th e first sentence of 
Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the Eur opean Central Bank, the Governing Council has adopted 
this opinion. 
 1. Purpose of the draft law 
1.1 The main purpose of the draft law is to amend the Law on the State Audit Office in order to make 
the legal provisions more detailed and certain a nd to explicitly enable the State Audit Office to 
conduct the public audit of Lietuvos bankas, i.e. to  audit the performance of the activities provided 
for in the Law on Lietuvos bankas, as far as this  does not conflict with the legal acts of the 
European Union and the objectives and tasks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) 
established therein. 
1.2 In the Law on the State Audit Office as it curre ntly stands, Lietuvos bankas is not specifically 
mentioned as an institution that is subject to public audit. According to the consulting authority, the 
legal basis for carrying out a public audit of Li etuvos bankas is currently derived only from a 
systemic analysis of the legal norms governing the authority of the State Audit Office, the institutions subject to public audit and the scope of public audits. In this regard, the proposed 
amendments to the Law on the State Audit Office will provide an explicit legal basis for the State 
Audit Office to perform such public audits of Lietuvos bankas. 
                                                 
1  Valstybės žinios , 1995, No 51-1243. 
2 OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42.  
2  
2. General observations 2.1 The last time the State Audit O ffice audited Lietuvos bankas was in 2004
3. This audit mostly 
covered the period from 2002 to 2003, prior to Lithuania’s entry into the EU. Since 1994 the financial accounts of Lietuvos bankas have been audited by an independent external auditor. 
Currently, the independent external auditor of  Lietuvos bankas is UAB Ernst & Young Baltic. 
2.2 With regard to the authority to carry out stat e audits, while the ECB and several national central 
banks (NCBs) are subject to other statutory au dits and controls, in addition to audits by 
independent external auditors (such as those appoi nted for Eurosystem NCBs under Article 27.1 of 
the Statute of the European System of Central Ba nks and of the European Central Bank (hereinafter 
the ‘Statute of the ESCB’)), the scope of such aud its is subject to certain limits. In the Convergence 
Report of May 2008
4 the ECB noted that, where NCB operations are made subject to the control of 
a state audit office or similar body charged with co ntrolling the use of public finances, the scope of 
the control should be clearly defined by the lega l framework and should be without prejudice to the 
activities of the NCB’s independent external auditors , as laid down in Article 27.1 of the Statute of 
the ESCB. The state audit should be done on a non-political, independent and purely professional 
basis.  The activities of the state auditors shoul d in any event not jeopardise the NCBs’ 
independence. 
2.3 Moreover, the ECB has stressed on several occasions that, in compliance with the principle of 
financial independence of NCBs5, such statutory audits and controls may in any event not imply ex 
ante third party intervention in an NCB’s expenditure  needed for its statutory tasks, including both 
ESCB and non-ESCB related tasks, and that national law should provide specific safeguards to guarantee that state auditors do not interfere with the activities of the independent external auditors 
in respect of the review of ESCB-related accounts and ESCB-related tasks
6 conferred by the Treaty 
and the Statute of the ESCB. In addition, the ECB reminds the consulting authority that the 
‘primacy of Community law and rules adopted ther eunder also implies that national laws on access 
of third parties to documents [of an NCB] may not lead to infringements of the ESCB’s confidentiality regime’
7. 
2.4 More specifically as regards Lithuania, the ECB noted in the Convergence Report of May 2006 
that, under the Law on the State Audit Office, this  Office is empowered to check whether the 
State’s property is being effectively managed. The E CB also stated that it ‘understands that: (i) the 
State Audit Office is also bound by Article 3(2) of the Law [on Lietuvos bankas], which concerns 
                                                 
3  Report on the public audit: the assessment of the activities  of Lietuvos bankas, 30 December 2004. Available on the State 
Audit Office’s website at  http://www.vkontrole.lt/a uditas_ataskaita.php?730. 
4  Convergence Report, May 2008, p. 21. 
5  Opinion CON/2008/10. All ECB opinions are publis hed on the ECB’s website at www.ecb.europa.eu. 
6  Opinions CON/2006/4, CON/2006/33 and CON/2006/44.  
7  Convergence Report, May 2008, p. 22. 
3 the general prohibition on giving instructions to the NCB; (ii) the audit of the State Audit Office is 
limited to the management, usage and disposal of  real estate, equipment and capital of Lietuvos 
bankas; and (iii) the State Audit Office has no power  to interfere with either the opinion of the 
external auditors or with Li etuvos bankas’s ESCB-related tasks’8. The ECB concluded that, in view 
of these safeguards, the powers of the State Aud it Office are not incompatible with central bank 
independence. 
The ECB notes that these remarks remain valid. 
 3. Specific comments 3.1 In view of the safeguards required to ensure  central bank independence and outlined in the 
Convergence Report of May 2006 ( see paragraph 2.4 of this opinion), the current wording of the 
draft law should be clarified in order to ensure that such safeguards are in place. 
3.2 In the same vein, the ECB understands the inten tion of the consulting authority to make the 
appropriate legal provisions more detailed and certain
9. However, the ECB notes that the wording 
of the draft law itself does not entirely fulfil its purposes. For reasons of legal certainty, the wording of the draft law should therefore be adjusted in order to guarantee the safeguards 
mentioned above, following, for example, the c oncept of the ‘operational efficiency of the 
management’ in describing the mandate of the Stat e Audit Office, as expressed in Article 27.2 of 
the Statute of the ESCB. 
 This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.   Done at Frankfurt am Main, 29 September 2009. 
 
[signed] 
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET 
                                                 
8  Convergence Report, May 2006, p. 74. 
9  Explanatory memorandum on the draft law, paragraphs 2 and 4.