Activity report 2016.
Date: 2018-04-19
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: European Court of Auditors, activity report

2016

activity report

EN

1977 - 2017

02

EUROPEAN COURT OF AUDITORS 
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Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2017

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European Court of Auditors
GUARDIANS OF THE EU FINANCES

Court reform
Assurance
EU auditors
Quality

Briefing paper
Opinions
Accountability

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European Court of Auditors

02

Who we are

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) is an institution 
of the European Union, established to audit the EU’s 
finances.

Based in Luxembourg, our institution has  
28 members, one from every EU Member State. We 
employ around 900 professional and administrative 
staff of all EU nationalities.

What we do

Since 1977 the ECA contributes to improving the EU’s 
financial management, promotes accountability and 
transparency, and acts as the independent guardian 
of the financial interests of its citizens. 

We check that the EU keeps good accounts,  
correctly applies its financial rules, and delivers value 
for money. Through our audit reports we inform the 
European Parliament, Council, national parliaments 
and the general public of how the EU’s money is  
being spent.

 
Contents

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47 

European Court of Auditors

President’s foreword

2016 at a glance

Our activities
Auditing

Reports and opinions

Significant events

Relations with stakeholders

Cooperation with Supreme Audit Institutions

Our management
The ECA college

Audit chambers and committees

Measuring performance

Our staff
Staff allocation

Recruitment

Age profile

Gender balance

Support to audit
Professional training

Translation

Information technology

Buildings

Environmental management

Our accountability
Financial information

Internal and external audits

Discharge

Declaration by the authorising officer by delegation

Annex — special reports 2016

President’s foreword

04

This report covers our activities in 2016. It also contains 
information on our management and the resources 
we used to fulfil our mission and achieve our goals. We 
continued to audit the EU institutions and other bodies, 
as well as all EU funds received by the Member States, 
non-EU countries, international organisations and other 
parties. In line with our Treaty obligations, we produced 
annual reports on the EU budget and the European De-
velopment Funds, as well as on all EU agencies and many 
other bodies across the Union. Our 36 special reports of 
the year cover a large range of topics.

For our work to make a difference, it is essential that we 
communicate effectively the insights we gain to our 
stakeholders at EU and national levels. During the year, 
we further enhanced our cooperation with the European 
Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Most 
EU money is, however, spent in the Member States. It is 
therefore equally important that citizens hear from us 
and about our work.

This report highlights some of the changes we have 
made in our governance and knowledge management. 
It also sets out key information about our staff manage-
ment, finances and performance over the past year, as 
well as the results of our internal and external audits 
and the annual discharge procedure. To continue fulfill-
ing our mission effectively, we also built further on our 
internal reform, making the most of our staff and their 
knowledge.

I am pleased to say that the record output of reports and 
other audit publications in 2016 is a testimony to our 
efficiency and proof of our commitment to deliver results 
and protect the financial interests of EU citizens.

I wish you pleasant reading!

Klaus-Heiner Lehne
President

Dear reader,

2016 was a year in which the foundations of the Euro-
pean Union were severely shaken. Coping with the rise 
of populism, protecting our citizens from terrorism, 
facing up to the challenges of migration and witnessing 
an exit referendum in one of our Member States all left 
their mark. As a result, the faith and confidence of many 
citizens in our common European project was tested and 
we must do our utmost to ensure that the trust of our 
fellow citizens in the work of the European institutions 
is maintained. I believe sound financial governance has 
an important role to play in this respect. The European 
Court of Auditors contributes to this process by publish-
ing independent audit reports on the state of the EU’s fi-
nances. We have a duty to our citizens to make sure they 
know how their money is spent by the Union and that 
they get good value for it. The EU must invest wisely on 
their behalf in policies, programmes and projects where 
it can make a difference. It has to deliver results and en-
sure a fair return on investment; this will not only ensure 
the Union’s sustainability, but will give it legitimacy in the 
eyes of its citizens.

2016 at a glance

05

Our activities

Our management

 •

 •

 •

 •

 •

Annual reports on the EU budget and on the Euro-
pean Development Funds.

Fifty-two specific annual reports on the EU’s vari-
ous agencies and bodies located across the Union.

Thirty-six special reports examining the effective-
ness of diverse management topics and budgetary 
areas such as climate change, maritime transport, 
migration or banking supervision.

Two opinions on new or updated EU laws with sig-
nificant financial management implications — one 
on the European Fund for Strategic Investments 
(EFSI) and the other on the Supervisory Committee 
of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) — and 
a briefing paper on the mid-term review of the 
multiannual financial framework 2014-2020.

Meetings, seminars and conferences with our 
partners and stakeholders, including a high-level 
conference on the use of financial instruments for 
the EU budget.

 •

 •

 •

 •

 •

 •

We elected a new president, Klaus-Heiner Lehne 
(Germany).

We welcomed seven new members of our institu-
tion: Jan Gregor (Czech Republic), Mihails Kozlovs 
(Latvia), Janusz Wojciechowski (Poland), Samo 
Jereb (Slovenia), Rimantas Šadžius (Lithuania),  
Leo Brincat (Malta) and João Figueiredo (Portugal); 
Juhan Parts (Estonia) joined the ECA on 1 January 
2017.

We reformed our system of audit chambers and 
committees by creating a fifth chamber respon-
sible for auditing the EU’s financing and adminis-
tration, and an audit control committee to ensure 
the quality of our audit work, and gave one mem-
ber overall responsibility for our annual report.

We launched our knowledge management 
framework and set up a new institution-wide risk 
management policy as part of our reform.

We continued to reduce our staff, as agreed 
between the EU institutions, and to implement an 
equal opportunities policy in recruitment and  
human resources management.

We put in place a high-quality system of environ-
mental management for our buildings, which led 
to a positive environmental assessment by experts.

Our output: 
annual reports 
special reports,  
opinions and  
briefing papers

Our activities

06

Auditing

Audit visits in 2016

Audit is our core business.

We carry out three types of audits across the different 
areas of the EU budget:

 •

 •

Financial audits and compliance audits — on the 
reliability of annual accounts and the legality and 
regularity of transactions as required by legislation 
(notably the statement of assurance) as well as as-
sessments of whether the systems or transactions 
of specific budgetary areas comply with the rules 
and regulations governing them.

Performance audits — on the effectiveness of 
EU policies and programmes and on the sound-
ness of financial management (including value for 
money). These audits are on specific management 
or budget ary topics: we select them on the basis of 
such criteria as public interest, risk of irregularity or 
poor performance and potential for improvement.

Based on the evidence we collect when performing our 
audit work, we aim to provide clear conclusions on the 
state of EU budget accounting and financial manage-
ment, including for the specific spending areas, as well as 
to give practical, cost-effective recommendations where 
improvements can be made. Our auditors obtain this evi-
dence through their examinations of co-funded policies, 
programmes and projects in the EU and across the world, 
wherever EU money is spent.

While most of the audit work is undertaken at our 
premises in Luxembourg, in 2016 our auditors also made 
a large number of visits to national, regional and local 
authorities in the Member States, and other recipients of 
EU funds in the Union and beyond its borders. This also 
includes the other EU institutions, agencies and bodies, 
or EU delegations, but also international organisations 
such as the United Nations involved in processing of EU 
funds. Through these visits, we obtained direct audit 
evidence from those involved in management, collection 
and payment of EU funds, and from the final beneficiar-
ies who received them.

Our audit teams generally comprise two or three audi-
tors, while our audit visits range in length from a few 
days to a couple of weeks. The frequency and intensity of 
audit work in individual Member States and beneficiary 
countries depend on the type of audit work we carry out.

Our audit visits within the EU are often made in liaison 
with the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) of the Member 
States concerned. In 2016, our auditors spent 4 246 days 
auditing on the spot (4 310 in 2015) — in Member States 
and outside the EU.

In addition, our auditors spent 2 510 days at the EU insti-
tutions in Brussels and Luxembourg, as well as at decen-
tralised agencies and bodies across the EU, international 
organisations such as the UN or OECD, and private audit 
firms. We used videoconferencing and other information 
technology such as secure data and document sharing 
for their audit work, whenever possible.

4 246 days 
auditing on the spot 
in Member States 
and outside the EU

Our activities

07

426

372

350
345

327

288

248

168
167
166

135

99

90

83

66
63
62
60
56
55
51

43

EU Member States 
(3 789 audit days)

6 756 
audit 
days

Other countries 
(457 audit days)

EU 
institutions and 
bodies and 
international 
organisations 
(2 510 audit days)

6 756 audit days in 2016

Spain
Italy
France
Poland
Germany
Romania
United Kingdom 
Hungary
Czech Republic
Greece
Bulgaria
Portugal
Ireland
Slovakia
Lithuania
Croatia
Sweden
Austria
Belgium 
Netherlands
Malta
Denmark
Finland
Latvia
Slovenia
Cyprus
Luxembourg 
Estonia
Norway
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ghana
Serbia
Turkey
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Guatemala
Thailand
Cape Verde 
Rwanda
Indonesia
Switzerland
Albania
Peru
Sierra Leone
Zambia
Belarus
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Madagascar
Tanzania
Honduras
Mozambique
Nigeria
Senegal
Malawi
Tunisia
Israel

24
17
15

8
5

0

2
5
6
8
8
10
10
12
14
14
15
16
18
18
18
18
20
20
22
22
23
24
24
24
27
29
30

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

Our activities

08

Reports and opinions

Audit reports and opinions produced

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

Total 91

2

Total 89

2

Total 95
2

51

52

24

14

2014

25

10

2015

52

36

5*

2016

Annual reports

Speciﬁc annual reports

Special reports
Opinions and other outputs

* Two opinions requested in accordance with the ﬁnancial regulation and three 

publications produced at our own initiative: one brieﬁng paper and two summary 
reports on EU agencies and joint undertakings.

Our audit reports and opinions are an essential element 
of the EU’s accountability chain, as they are used to hold 
to account — particularly within the annual discharge 
procedure — those responsible for managing the EU 
budget. This is mainly the European Commission, but 
also the other EU institutions and bodies. National, 
regional and local administrations in the Member States 
also play a major role in areas under shared manage-
ment, such as agriculture and cohesion spending, ac-
counting for the implementation of around 80 % of the 
EU budget.

We publish three main types of audit reports.

 •

 •

 •

Annual reports, mainly containing the results 
of financial and compliance audit work on the 
European Union budget and European Develop-
ment Funds, but also budgetary management and 
performance aspects.

Specific annual reports, published separately on 
the EU’s agencies, decentralised bodies and joint 
undertakings.

Special reports, presenting the results of selected 
performance and compliance audits of specific 
spending or policy areas, or budgetary or manage-
ment issues.

In addition, we issue opinions on new or updated laws 
with a significant impact on financial management and 
other review-based publications, such as landscape 
reviews and briefing papers, either at the request of 
another institution or on our own initiative.

All our audit reports, opinions and other audit publica-
tions are available on our website (eca.europa.eu).

Our activities

09

Key information

2015 EU spending

€145.2 billion, around 
€285 for every citizen

Accounts

Revenue

Payments

reliable, ECA signs 
them off

legal and regular, ECA 
gives clean opinion

materially affected 
by error (3.8 %), ECA 
gives adverse opinion

Annual reports

2015 annual report on the EU budget

In 2016, when examining the implementation of the 2015 
EU budget, our auditors tested some 1 200 transactions 
across all spending areas. This means we have assessed 
1 200 different cases where EU money has been used 
to provide support to key infrastructure projects, SMEs, 
research organisations, farmers, students in our Member 
States or to beneficiaries in non-EU countries.

In the report, we provided assurance on how these EU 
funds had been used during the year and highlighted 
where they were most at risk of being spent irregularly. 
In addition, we specifically assessed each major area of 
EU activity by the headings of the 2014-2020 multian-
nual financial framework and provided information 
on budgetary and financial management, as well as 
on performance elements in three main areas of the 
EU budget. We also analysed why errors occurred and 
provided useful and cost-effective recommendations for 
improvement.

Our 2015 annual report was published on 13 October, 
a month earlier than in previous years.

In 2016 we established a high-level working group to 
examine the possibilities for further increasing the added 
value of our annual report to its users, in particular the 
European Parliament, for example through providing 
more geographical insights, performance assessments 
for additional areas of the EU budget and drawing assur-
ance from the internal controls at EU and Member State 
levels. We adopted these proposals in early 2017.

Our activities

10

Main conclusions

  The EU accounts for 2015 were prepared in accord-
ance with international standards and present, in 
all material aspects, a true and fair view. We were 
therefore able, once again, to give a clean opinion 
on their reliability. However, we gave an adverse 
opinion on the regularity of payments.

  Corrective action by authorities in the Member 
States and by the Commission had a positive im-
pact on the estimated level of error. Without this 
action, our overall estimated level of error would 
have been 4.3 %. Although steps have been taken 
by the Commission to improve its assessment of 
risk and the impact of corrective actions, there is 
still scope for improvement.

  The estimated level of error, which measures the 

 

level of irregularity, for 2015 payments is 3.8 %. This 
is an improvement on recent years but still signifi-
cantly above our materiality threshold of 2 %.

  We continue to find nearly the same estimated 

level of error under shared management with the 
Member States (4.0 %) and for expenditure man-
aged directly by the Commission (3.9 %). Adminis-
trative expenditure by the EU institutions had the 
lowest estimated level of error (0.6 %).

If the Commission, authorities in the Member 
States or independent auditors had made use of 
all the information available to them, they could 
have prevented, or detected and corrected a sig-
nificant proportion of the errors before the related 
payments were made.

'The EU needs to regain the trust of its citizens', said ECA President Klaus-Heiner Lehne (middle), presenting our annual report at the Committee on Budgetary Control 
(CONT). Also in photo: CONT chair Ingeborg Grässle and ECA member Lazaros S. Lazarou.

Our activities

2015 results of transaction testing for EU spending areas

Spending area

Amount subject to audit and estimated level of error

Natural resources

Economic, social and 
territorial cohesion

Competitiveness for 
growth and jobs

€58.6 bn

2.9 %

€53.9 bn

5.2 %

€14.5 bn

4.4 %

Global Europe

€6.9 bn

2.8 %

Administration

€9.0 bn

0.6 %

0

20

40

60
€ bn

Table is taken from the 2015 EU audit in brief available on our website (eca.europa.eu).

11

Audit
conclusion

Affected by
material error

Free from
material error

Our activities

12

Key information

2015 EDFs budget

€3.1 billion

Accounts

reliable

Revenue

free from error

Payments

affected by material  
error (3.8 %)

2015 annual report on European Development 
Funds 

The European Development Funds (EDF) provide Europe-
an Union assistance for development cooperation to the 
African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and overseas 
countries and territories. They are funded by the Member 
States and managed outside the framework of the EU 
budget by the European Commission and, for some as-
sistance, by the European Investment Bank (EIB).

We found the EDFs’ 2015 accounts to be reliable. Their 
revenue was not affected by material error. Overall, as 
in previous years, the level of error we found in EDF 
expenditure (3.8 %) pointed to weaknesses in the ex-ante 
checks. Errors due to the absence of supporting docu-
ments to justify expenditure and non-compliance with 
procurement rules were the cause of more than two-
thirds of the estimated level of error.

Our annual report on the EDFs is published alongside our 
annual report on the EU budget and is available on our 
website (eca.europa.eu).

Our activities

13

 Key information

Audited by ECA

41 EU agencies and 
other bodies, 7 joint 
undertakings, Euro-
pean schools …

Total 2015 budget

€4.1 billion, around 
3 % of 2015 EU budget

ECA published

52 specific annual 
reports

Specific annual reports

EU agencies, other bodies and joint undertakings are 
located throughout the Union and perform specific tasks 
in areas of vital importance to EU citizens, such as health, 
safety, security, freedom and justice.

In 2016, we audited whether their accounts are reliable 
and whether the transactions that underlie these ac-
counts comply with the rules. When forming our opinion 
on their accounts, we considered — where available — 
the audit work done by private audit firms. We also 
audited the Sisnet communication infrastructure, the 
European Schools and the Europol Pension Fund.

Our conclusion on accounts

The 2015 accounts of all agencies, other bodies and joint 
undertakings were reliable, except in the case of the 
European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), for 
which we issued a qualified opinion.

Our conclusion on transactions

The transactions underlying their 2015 accounts com-
plied with the rules, except in the case of the European 
Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and of the 
Joint Undertaking for Electric Components and Systems 
for European Leadership (ECSEL), for which we issued 
qualified opinions.

All our specific annual reports together with the two 
summaries — one on the results of our 2015 audits of 
the agencies and other bodies and the other on the joint 
undertakings — are available on our website  
(eca.europa.eu).

Our activities

14

Special reports

We present the findings, conclusions and recommenda-
tions of our performance and compliance audits in our 
special reports, which we publish throughout the year.

Our members decide on the audit subjects covered by 
these special reports. Our work programming makes use 
of criteria such as public interest, risk of irregularity or 
poor performance and potential for improvement. When 
selecting audit topics, we also take into account the 
views expressed by our stakeholders, and in particular by 
the European Parliament.

Our performance audits often cover a number of finan-
cial years and their complex subject matter means they 
can take more than a year to complete. We design these 
audit tasks to be of maximum impact, thereby making 
best use of our resources.

In 2016, our special reports focused on topics related to 
the overall EU objectives of achieving added value and 
growth, as well as the EU’s response to global challenges, 
including key concerns such as energy and climate, the 
internal market, and migration. In our special reports we 
focus mainly on assessing the performance of the EU 
funded policies, programmes and projects: we particu-
larly check if the results were achieved effectively and ef-
ficiently and if the EU funding provided added value. We 
also provide recommendations for improvement, which 
might involve financial savings, better working methods, 
avoidance of waste, or a more cost-efficient achievement 
of the expected policy objectives.

In 2016, we produced a record number of 36 special 
reports (25 special reports in 2015). We highlight two of 
them: one on external migration, which illustrates the 
relevance of our work on EU spending beyond its bor-
ders; the other on EU maritime transport, showing the 
risks of inefficiencies in the Union’s spending to increase 
its external competitiveness. A list of all special reports 
produced in 2016 is provided in the annex of this report.

Record number 
of 36 special reports 
across different 
spending areas

Our activities

15

Competitiveness for growth and jobs

Economic, social and territorial cohesion

2014-2020 planned budget = €143.5 bn
13 % of overall planned budget
2016 budget = €19.0 bn

Special reports:

Services Directive
Rail freight transport
Roma integration
Education objectives
Financial instruments
Maritime transport
State aid rules
Closure of 2007-2013 
programmes

SMART AND
INCLUSIVE GROWTH

2014-2020 planned budget = €371.6 bn 
34 % of overall planned budget
2016 budget = €50.8 bn

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH: 
NATURAL RESOURCES

Special reports
by MFF areas

GLOBAL EUROPE

2014-2020 planned budget = € 415.5 bn
38 % of overall planned budget
2016 budget = €62.5 bn

Special reports:

Farmers’ incomes
Baltic Sea
Animal diseases
Sustainable biofuels
Nuclear decommissioning
Land Parcel Identiﬁcation 
Cross compliance
Cross-border health threats
Climate action
Food waste

2014-2020 planned budget = €66.0 bn
6 % of overall planned budget
2016 budget = €9.2 bn

Special reports:

EEAS buildings 
External migration
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
EU assistance to Moldova
Aid for African Great Lakes region
EU assistance to Montenegro
Western Balkans — meta audit
EU aid to Honduras
EU assistance to Ukraine
Union Civil Protection Mechanism
Revenue in sub-Saharan Africa

ADMINISTRATION

2014-2020 planned budget = €65.5 bn
6 % of overall planned budget
2016 budget = €9.0 bn

Special reports:

Follow-up of ECA’s special reports
European Institute of Technology
Agencies’ use of grants
EU institutions’ public procurement
European Commission’s governance

FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

Special reports:

Excessive deﬁcit procedure
Single Supervisory Mechanism

Our activities

16

Performance audit in focus

EU external migration spending in Southern 
Mediterranean and Eastern Neighbourhood 
countries until 2014 (09/2016)

Responding to migration, integration and European 
security challenges is high on the EU’s and Member 
States’ political agenda, receiving significant public 
attention across Europe and beyond its borders. It 
is also a policy area that touches on the lives of all 
Europeans. So it is very important that the EU spends 
money for this purpose to the best possible effect, 
delivering concrete and measurable results. We have 
made assessing EU spending in this area one of our 
priorities for 2016 and beyond.

Our first audit of this domain looked at the finan-
cing of the external dimension of the EU’s common 
migration policy. Our auditors examined whether 
the EU had set out clearly what it aimed to achieve 
and whether spending had been effective and 
well-coordinated.

We checked 23 projects (€89 million of EU funding) in 
the Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood countries, 
namely Algeria, Georgia, Libya, Moldova, Morocco 
and Ukraine. We also reviewed policy, programming 
and project documents as well as related literature 
and evaluations, carried out interviews and collected 
information from the Commission, EU delegations, 
the responsible national and local authorities, final 
beneficiaries, international organisations, civil society 
and think tanks.

Our auditors found that 
the Commission 
struggled to demonstrate 
the effectiveness of the 
EU’s spending on external 
migration policy in 
neighbourhood 
countries.

Migration remains a priority for us: in 2016, for example, we audited the area of migration hotspots in the Mediterranean and a special report on this audit is planned for 2017.

Our activities

17

We presented the special report to the European 
Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, as 
well as to the Council’s High-Level Working Group on 
Asylum and Migration, underlining that EU spending 
on migration in the neighbourhood countries will 
only be effective if clear objectives are set, if funds 
are allocated to well-defined priorities, and if govern-
ance arrangements and the coordination between 
EU bodies and with Member States are improved. 
The recommendations made in the report were 
welcomed by both legislative institutions who will 
take them into account in discussing and deciding EU 
policy on external migration spending in the future. 
The report received extensive media coverage both 
inside and outside the EU and achieved — in terms of 
media impact — the most significant impact of all our 
special reports during the year.

Overall, the financing instruments provided no clear 
strategy by which to identify their contribution to ob-
jectives and thus it was unclear what they intended 
to achieve at EU level. It was often difficult to measure 
the results achieved by EU spending and the contri-
bution of migration to development, one of the EU’s 
priorities, was difficult to assess. We also found that 
the policy had complex governance arrangements, 
insufficient coordination and no funding overview 
that specified who financed what between the Com-
mission and the Member States.

Our auditors were unable to determine all amounts 
involved; we estimated that €1.4 billion were con-
tracted under different financing instruments for the 
2007-2013 period, but we could only determine the 
amounts effectively spent for one of those. Assessing 
the contribution made by each of the various finan-
cing instruments to migration policy, the degree to 
which they have furthered the EU’s external migra-
tion policy or whether they were allocated to the 
main thematic or geographical priorities was there-
fore difficult.

The EU should allocate its 
resources to those areas 
where they have the 
greatest potential for 
adding value.

This is particularly important as resources devoted 
to assistance for non-EU countries fell far short of the 
rapidly expanding needs caused by the significant 
increase in irregular migration in the Mediterranean 
region, especially after 2013. Our auditors noted that 
funding was fragmented and that projects were 
spread too thinly to produce significant results in the 
countries concerned. This situation limited the EU’s 
ability to ensure a genuine incentive effect of its inter-
vention in non-EU countries or to develop effective 
cooperation with them on migration concerns.

Our activities

18

Performance audit in focus

Maritime transport in the EU: in troubled 
waters — much ineffective and unsustainable 
investment (23/2016)

We regularly examine EU financed projects in the area 
of transport: airports, rail freight, inland waterways or 
roads are recent examples. This time we looked at EU 
investments in port infrastructure. Maritime transport 
is an important area for the EU’s trade and competi-
tiveness, but also for our entrepreneurs and citizens. 
In recent years seaports contributed around 1 % to EU 
GDP and supported the employment of over 2 million 
people. It is therefore crucial that the EU — together 
with the Member State authorities — spends money 
on these investments as effectively as possible and 
that this EU funding delivers results.

European Investment Bank (EIB). They reviewed docu-
ments such as EU and national strategies for maritime 
transport and port development plans, interviewed 
Commission officials, regional and port authorities’ 
representatives in Member States, surveyed industry 
stakeholders such as port operators, and obtained 
further evidence by checking the ports. They carried 
out field examinations at 19 seaports in Germany, 
Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden, as well as specific 
studies on eight others.  

We found that the 
long-term strategies 
in place did not 
provide a robust basis 
for port-capacity 
planning. 

Our auditors assessed the maritime freight transport 
strategies of the European Commission and the 
Member States and the value for money delivered 
by EU investments in port services, which totalled 
€17 billion in grants and loans between 2000 and 
2013. This included some investments financed by the 

Neither the EU nor the Member States had a stra-
tegic overview of which ports needed funding or for 
what, while the funding of similar types of infrastruc-
ture in neighbouring ports led to ineffective and 
unsustainable investment. We also reassessed five 

Our audit found that much investment was ineffective and unsustainable, with a high risk of waste.

Our activities

19

projects already examined in 2010 and found that 
these projects deliver poor value for money. The use 
of the EU funded infrastructure in these ports was 
still inadequate after almost a decade of operations 
and relevant port areas in four ports were still either 
empty or nearly so, while the fifth port did not have 
any operations at all.

In our audits, it is not always possible to clearly quan-
tify the ineffectiveness of the EU funding examined. 
However, this was not the case this time. We found 
that a third of EU spending on facilities such as quays, 
docks and breakwaters at EU seaports between 2000 
and 2013 was ineffective and unsustainable, with 
one euro in three spent on the projects examined 
(€194 million) going on projects which duplicated ex-
isting facilities nearby and €97 million being invested 
in infrastructure which was either unused or heavily 
underused for more than 3 years after completion.

This is due to insufficiently harmonised customs 
controls and a lack of Commission guidance on port 
infrastructures and the application of the state aid 
rules for ports.

When presenting the report to the European Parlia-
ment and the Council, we stressed that maritime 
transport in the EU is in ‘troubled waters’, particularly 
underlining the high risk of almost €400 million of EU 
funding invested in the Member States being wasted.

This special report was hard-hitting. It showed the 
Commission and the Member States the direction to-
wards a more effective, efficient and transparent way 
of spending EU money, supporting the Commission’s 
attempts to prioritise investments to connect ports 
but suggesting also the avoidance of certain future 
investments, and tackling inefficiency and ineffective-
ness with all legal means available. Our recommenda-
tions were welcomed by the Parliament and Council 
for their policy discussions on EU investment into 
ports services or similar cases.

Our auditors also 
concluded that there 
is no level playing field 
yet in Europe in 
maritime transport.

As we do for a number of our reports, we presented 
this one to industry stakeholders, and to the media 
at a press conference in Brussels. In addition, we pre-
sented it to the press in Antwerp, the second largest 
EU port, at the opening of a new port building. Our 
report received considerable media coverage, ensur-
ing EU-wide public scrutiny of its financial manage-
ment in this important sector.

Detecting fraud

Although our audits are not designed to specifically 
search for fraud, we detect a number of cases in which 
we suspect that irregular or fraudulent activity may 
have taken place. Our institution cooperates closely 
with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in fighting 
fraud against the EU budget. We forward to OLAF any 

suspicion of fraud, corruption or other illegal activity af-
fecting the EU’s financial interests that we identify in the 
course of our audit work. These cases are then followed-
up by OLAF, which decides on any resulting investigation 
and cooperates as necessary with Member State author-
ities. During 2016, we communicated to OLAF 11 such 
cases of suspected fraud that we had identified during 
our statement-of-assurance work for the 2015 and 2016 
financial years and within our other audit tasks.

Our activities

20

Opinions and other review-based 
publications

Briefing paper — new publication

We contribute to improving EU financial management 
also through opinions on proposals for new or revised 
legislation with significant financial impact. These opin-
ions are requested by the other EU institutions and used 
by the legislative authorities — the Parliament and the 
Council — in their work. We can also issue papers and 
reviews on other issues on our own initiative.

In 2016, we produced two opinions covering the Super-
visory Committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office 
(OLAF) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments 
(EFSI).

 •

Opinion No 1/2016 on amending the EU regulation 
on the secretariat of the Supervisory Committee of 
the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)

Our opinion supports the European Commission’s 
proposal that the secretariat of OLAF’s Supervisory 
Committee should no longer be provided by OLAF 
itself — which according to the Committee exposed 
secretariat staff to conflicting instructions — but by the 
Commission.

 •

Opinion No 2/2016 on a proposal to extend and 
expand the EFSI

Our opinion finds that European Commission plans to 
increase and extend just 1 year after its launch the invest-
ment fund at the heart of the ‘Juncker Plan’ aiming to 
generate €315 billion in public and private financing, 
were drawn up too soon and with little evidence that the 
increase was justified. We assessed that it was too soon 
for the economic, social and environmental impacts 
to be measured or for a conclusion to be drawn as to 
whether the EFSI is achieving its objectives.

In 2016, we developed a new product briefing  papers  
which aims to provide the EU’s legislators, in particular 
the Council, with independent, relevant and well-timed 
insights into various subjects. We published one such 
briefing paper in 2016 regarding the mid-term review of 
the multiannual financial framework (MFF) 2014-2020.

 •

Briefing paper — EU budget: time to reform?

We analysed the Commission’s communication on the 
mid-term review and considered that the proposals have 
not benefited from any assessment of spending in the 
current period, that there will be little opportunity to 
assess performance before the next MFF, and there is 
a pressing need to tackle the growing complexity of the 
arrangements for funding EU policies. We suggested the 
Commission reconsider the timetable for developing the 
next MFF, conduct a comprehensive EU spending review, 
develop clearer, simpler and more coherent funding ar-
rangements, and make EU budget priorities the subject 
of a high-level debate.

The briefing papers are produced in a different way 
from our audit reports, as emphasis is placed on using 
our extensive knowledge base. They review the current 
state-of-play on a given subject and allow for informed 
decision and policymaking on the basis of sound, inde-
pendent and impartial advice.

Our opinions and other review-based publications are 
published on our website (eca.europa.eu).

Our activities

21

Significant events

Conference on EU financial instruments

Public Sector Accounting: Better Accounts, Better 
Budgets, Better Spending?

25-26 January 2016, ECA Luxembourg

We organised a workshop for public sector account-
ing experts. The participants discussed whether the 
harmonisation of financial accounting, budgeting and 
macroeconomic statistics was a possible way forward to 
a common framework based on the generally accepted 
accounting principles (GAAP). A panel of experts elabor-
ated on whether financial accounts, national accounts 
and budgets could be seen as three versions of one real-
ity. An interesting perspective was given in the breakout 
sessions, which among other things, addressed the role 
of auditors in advocating for versus adjusting to reform.

15 November 2016, ECA Luxembourg

We organised a high-level conference on EU financial 
instruments where representatives from the public and 
private sectors considered how financial instruments can 
best be used to provide financial support from the EU 
budget. Among the participants were: Ingeborg Grässle, 
chair of the Budgetary Control Committee of the Euro-
pean Parliament, Pier Luigi Gilibert, chief executive of the 
European Investment Fund, Vazil Hudák, vice-president 
of the European Investment Bank and Nicholas Martyn, 
Deputy Director-General for Policy, Compliance and 
Performance at the European Commission’s DG Regional 
and Urban Policy, who discussed the topic together with 
ECA member Iliana Ivanova.

The conference drew on the conclusions of our special 
report ‘Implementing the EU budget through financial 
instruments — lessons to be learnt from the 2007-2013 
programme period’ and on our opinion on the EFSI. This 
was followed by a panel discussion on leveraging private 
capital, the reuse of available funds, management costs 
and the EFSI and SMEs initiative.

CONT chair Ingeborg Grässle, ECA President Klaus-Heiner Lehne and ECA member Iliana Ivanova were among the panellists of the ECA’s financial instruments conference.

Our activities

22

CIPFA International Seminar ‘Beyond base camp’

24-25 November 2016, ECA Luxembourg

The CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and 
Accountancy) International Seminar is a key event 
for finance professionals and auditors working in the 
public sector. With CIPFA we share values and campaign 
actively for good financial management and govern-
ance. Our member Lazaros S. Lazarou responsible for the 
annual report moderated the CIPFA-organised event. 
Participants discussed a wide range of issues such as 
improving public financial management, scrutiny and 
audit in an uncertain world and accountability and good 
governance in public finances.

ECA member Lazaros S. Lazarou and CIPFA International chair Ian Ball were among 
the panellists of the seminar organised by CIPFA in cooperation with the ECA.

Our activities

23

Relations with stakeholders

The impact of our work depends to a large extent on the 
use made of our audit results and recommendations by 
the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the 
national parliaments.

Parliament

During 2016 our president and members maintained 
regular contact with the committees of the European 
Parliament, and in particular with the Committee on 
Budgetary Control (CONT).

At the beginning of the year, President Caldeira pre-
sented the 2016 work programme to CONT and to the 
Conference of Committee Chairs, as part of our annual 
consultation with the European Parliament on the fol-
lowing year’s work programme. In April, he took part in 
the European Parliament plenary debate on the 2014 
discharge.

In October 2016, the newly elected President Lehne pre-
sented our 2015 annual report to CONT and later also to 
the plenary session. In November he was again at CONT 
to present our 2017 work programme. The same month, 
a CONT delegation paid their annual working visit to our 
institution.

During 2016 our members presented 33 special reports 
to CONT, as well as the findings and recommendations of 
the chapters of our 2015 annual report. In addition, they 
were asked to present 12 special reports and the annual 
report chapter on ‘Competitiveness for growth and jobs’ 
to other parliamentary committees. Moreover, our mem-
bers and audit teams were invited to present and discuss 
our audit work at various committee working groups, 
seminars and other parliamentary events. As in previ-
ous years, we held a joint meeting with the Parliament’s 
Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in 
order to discuss points of common interest regarding the 
ongoing work and we continued to cooperate with the 
Parliament’s research service with a view to achieving 
more efficient knowledge sharing.

CONT delegation visits the ECA to discuss topics of common interest, 14 November 2016, Luxembourg.

Our activities

24

Council

National parliaments

We continued our efforts to work more closely with the 
various formations of the Council, both at political and 
working levels.

In January 2016, President Caldeira met with Jeroen 
Dijsselbloem, the Minister of Finance of the Netherlands, 
chair of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council 
(Ecofin) and chair of the Eurogroup. They discussed the 
follow up of our 2014 annual report for the 2014 dis-
charge and the challenges in the management of EU 
finances.

In October 2016, President Lehne met with Peter Kažimir, 
Minister of Finance of Slovakia and chair of Ecofin, and 
in November with Edward Scicluna, Minister of Finance 
of Malta and future chair of Ecofin, to discuss our 2015 
annual report and its follow up in the 2015 discharge 
 procedure together with other ongoing audit work.

80 % of EU budget spending is managed by national, 
regional and local authorities in the Member States. We 
are therefore committed to closer future cooper ation 
with parliaments in the Member States by regularly 
providing them with information about our work and 
discussing with them the results of our audits and their 
implications, including the recommendations we make. 
In 2016 our members presented the 2015 annual report 
in 19 Member States, and in a large number of them they 
also presented several of our special reports.

Cooperation with Supreme Audit 
Institutions

The ECA is the EU’s external auditor and we cooper-
ate with other Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) mainly 
through:

 •

 •

 •

the Contact Committee of the SAIs of EU Member 
States;

the network of the SAIs of candidate and potential 
candidate countries to the EU;

international organisations of public audit institu-
tions, notably the International Organisation of Su-
preme Audit Institutions (Intosai) and its European 
regional group (Eurosai).

ECA President Klaus-Heiner Lehne discusses our annual report with Malta’s Minister of Finance Edward Scicluna, 7 November 2016, Brussels.

Our activities

25

Contact Committee of the Supreme Audit 
Institutions of EU Member States

As part of our support for sharing knowledge and 
expert ise in auditing EU funds, we opened selected 
 internal training courses to auditors from national SAIs.

The EU Treaty requires the ECA and national audit bodies 
of the Member States to cooperate in a spirit of trust, 
while maintaining their independence. We actively 
cooperate with EU Member State SAIs through the 
Contact Committee framework, which includes an an-
nual meeting and various working groups, networks and 
task forces set up to address specific issues of common 
interest.

During 2016, we contributed to or participated in the 
activities of the working bodies on the EU banking union, 
Structural Funds, the Europe 2020 strategy, fiscal policy 
audit, value added tax and the prevention and combat-
ting of irregularities and fraud.

We also coordinated the review and assessment of the 
Contact Committee cooperation framework. The com-
mittee took note of the resulting report and approved 
the recommendations.

Moreover, we provide administrative support to the 
committee, notably in the form of managing its website 
and administrative assistance and coordination of its 
early warning mechanism, through which SAIs keep each 
other informed of key developments in relation to their 
work.

Hosted and chaired by the Slovak SAI, the annual meeting of the Contact Committee mainly focused on EU energy policy and climate, 20-21 October 2016, Bratislava.  
(Photo: Peter Reefe)

Our activities

26

Enhanced cooperation with respect to audit of 
EU funds

We continuously liaise with the Member States’ SAIs in 
order to enhance our cooperation with respect to audit-
ing EU funds and to analyse the possibility of selecting 
audit topics which we could undertake in a coordinated 
manner. In 2016, we signed a memorandum of under-
standing with the SAIs of Croatia and Poland for the 
co ordinated audit of the JASPERS programme, with 
a special report planned in 2017. We also continued to 
streamline our administrative procedures for informing 
national SAIs about our audit visits and for clearing the 
facts with our auditees in Member States.

In May 2016, our members and auditors met with the French SAI (Cour des comptes) in order to share the audit programmes and plan common activities in areas such as financial 
and economic governance, transport, environment and energy, migration and asylum and cohesion and agriculture.

Our activities

27

Network of Supreme Audit Institutions 
of candidate and potential candidate 
countries to the EU

We cooperate with the SAIs of EU candidate and poten-
tial candidate countries mainly through a network similar 
to the Contact Committee.

Throughout 2016, we continued to support this network 
in carrying out parallel audits on energy efficiency and 
public procurement, which in the latter case included the 
hosting of the kick-off meeting attended by the heads of 
the participating SAIs.

Further to this, we contributed actively to several other 
meetings and activities of the network, dealing with 
 topics such as materiality and sampling in financial audit-
ing, developing effective working relationships between 
SAIs and national parliaments, or SAI independence.

Nine auditors from the network SAIs participated in our 
2016 internship programme and another 12 attended our 
internal training courses.

Other cooperation

In 2016, we continued our active involvement in and con-
tribution to the activities of Intosai and Eurosai, notably 
in their relevant working bodies.

In June 2016, we hosted the 44th meeting of the Eurosai 
Governing Board.

In December 2016, at the XXII congress of Intosai in the 
United Arab Emirates, the ECA was formally appointed 
Vice-chair of the Professional Standards Committee. 
This reflects our ambition to make a contribution to the 
public audit standard-setting process. We contributed 
significantly to the drafting and endorsement of the 
 ISSAI 5600 standard (Peer Review Guide), as well as to the 
development of two new environmental audit standards 
(ISSAI 5110 and 5120).

Our management

28

The ECA college

The ECA college comprises one member per Member 
State, each serving a term of 6 years, which can be 
renewed. Members are appointed by the Council, after 
consultation with the European Parliament, following 
nomination by their respective Member States. The 
 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union re-
quires them to perform their duty in complete independ-
ence and in the general interest of the EU.

Most members are assigned to one of the five audit 
chambers, where reports, opinions and other review-
based publications are adopted and decisions on 
broader strategic and administrative issues are taken. 
Each member has the responsibility for his or her own 
audit tasks. One member is assigned to lead the Audit 
Quality Control Committee and another to coordinate 
interinstitutional relations. They are assisted by a private 
office.

The reports, opinions and other review-based publica-
tions prepared under their responsibility are presented 
to the chamber and/or the full college for adoption and 
then to the European Parliament and the Council.

The members elect the president of the ECA from 
amongst themselves for a renewable period of 3 years. 

In addition to his other responsibilities, the president 
 supervises the performance of our work and represents 
our institution externally. On 1 October 2016, Klaus- 
Heiner Lehne replaced Vítor Caldeira, who after 9 years 
as the ECA’s President became the President of the 
 Portuguese SAI (Tribunal De Contas).

In 2016, following nominations from their Member 
States’ governments and after consultation with the 
European Parliament, the Council of the European Union 
appointed:

 •

 •

 •

 •

 •

Jan Gregor (Czech Republic), Mihails Kozlovs 
(Latvia), Janusz Wojciechowski (Poland) and Samo 
Jereb (Slovenia), ECA members as of 7 May 2016;

Rimantas Šadžius (Lithuania), ECA member as of 
16 June 2016;

Leo Brincat (Malta) and João Figueiredo (Portugal), 
ECA members as of 1 October 2016;

Juhan Parts (Estonia), ECA member as of 1 January 
2017.

ECA members Ladislav Balko (Slovakia) and Lazaros 
S. Lazarou (Cyprus) were re-appointed on 7 May 
and 2 November 2016 respectively.

ECA members had 24 college meetings in 2016. Photo from their college meeting on 26 January 2017.

Our management

29

European Court of Auditors: organisation chart as at 1 January 2017

President

Klaus-Heiner LEHNE
Germany

Chamber I
Sustainable use of 
natural resources

Chamber II
Investment for 
cohesion, growth 
and inclusion

Chamber III
External action, 
security and justice

Chamber IV
Regulation of markets 
and competitive 
economy

Chamber V
Financing and 
administering the 
Union

Member for 
Audit Quality 
Control 
Committee

Dean

Dean

Dean

Dean

Dean

Phil WYNN OWEN
United Kingdom

Iliana IVANOVA
Bulgaria

Karel PINXTEN
Belgium

Baudilio TOMÉ MUGURUZA
Spain

Lazaros S. LAZAROU
Cyprus

Danièle LAMARQUE
France

Nikolaos MILIONIS
Greece

Henri GRETHEN
Luxembourg

Szabolcs FAZAKAS
Hungary

Kevin CARDIFF
Ireland

Pietro RUSSO
Italy

Janusz WOJCIECHOWSKI
Poland

Ladislav BALKO
Slovakia

Hans Gustaf WESSBERG
Sweden

Neven MATES
Croatia

Jan GREGOR
Czech Republic

Samo JEREB
Slovenia

George PUFAN
Romania

Ville ITÄLÄ
Finland

Alex BRENNINKMEIJER
Netherlands

Mihails KOZLOVS
Latvia

João FIGUEIREDO
Portugal

Oskar HERICS
Austria

Bettina JAKOBSEN
Denmark

Rimantas ŠADŽIUS
Lithuania

Leo BRINCAT
Malta

Juhan PARTS
Estonia

Our management

30

The reform of our chambers and committees comple-
ments two other major reforms linked to implementing 
our strategy for 2013-2017; the introduction of task-based 
organisation at the start of 2016 and the ongoing initia-
tive to establish an institution-wide network to strength-
en knowledge management. Under the new task-based 
organisation, audit directorates are composed of a man-
agement team (a director and principal managers) and 
a pool of staff (auditors and assistants).

For each task, the chamber responsible assigns a re-
porting member, a head of task and an audit team. The 
chambers and their policy experts will also play a key 
role in knowledge management activities for creating, 
maintaining and sharing knowledge. Moreover, the 
Enabling Knowledge for Audit (EKA) initiative was imple-
mented during 2016 and became a central pillar of our 
knowledge management processes, which include policy 
scans and subject briefs by our auditors.

All elements of the reform aim to make our institution 
more flexible in carrying out our tasks and to make bet-
ter use of our knowledge, skills and experience to carry 
out relevant, high-quality audits in a timely manner. This 
is a key goal of our strategy for 2013-2017.

Audit chambers and committees

In June 2016, we reformed the chambers and commit-
tees our institution uses to prepare and take decisions. 
Three changes are particularly noteworthy. The reform 
established:

 - five equal chambers of five members, including the 
dean each chamber elects to coordinate its work. 
Instead of being responsible for specific EU budget 
areas or bodies, each chamber now has an EU policy-
based theme to guide its work: environmental, social, 
economic, external affairs, and internal governance.

 - a new committee to oversee our audit quality man-
agement. The Audit Quality Control Committee is 
composed of the member for audit quality control 
and two members from chambers, who are appointed 
on a proposal of our president.

 - new responsibilities and an additional member for our 

Administrative Committee. The committee main-
tained the responsibility for preparing our decisions 
on strategy, the work programme and organisational 
matters and took on additional decision-making re-
sponsibilities with respect to certain staff matters. The 
new member for audit quality control joined the com-
mittee, which comprises the president (the committee 
chair), the deans of the chambers and the member 
for institutional relations with the participation of the 
Secretary-General.

Our management

31

ECA knowledge nodes: each chamber has an EU policy-based theme to guide its work

Chamber I
Sustainable 
use of natural 
resources

Chamber II
Investment 
for cohesion, growth 
and inclusion

Energy

Climate change and environment

Health, food and consumer protection

Agriculture, rural development, 
maritime aﬀaires and ﬁsheries

Cohesion and regions

Transport and mobility

Employment, poverty 
and social inclusion

Education and culture

Development assistance 
and humanitarian aid

Foreign aﬀairs, enlargement 
and security

Migration, asylum and borders

Justice and home aﬀairs

Managing
ECA knowledge

Research, innovation 
and enterprise

Single market and competition

Financial and Economic 
Governance

Trade, customs and taxation

Results-based budgeting /
Focus on performance

EU institutions, agencies and bodies

Budgetary management and regulation

Innovative ways of ﬁnancing EU policies

EU governance

Chamber V
Financing and 
administering the 
Union

Chamber IV
Regulation of 
markets and 
competitive 
economy

Chamber III
External action, 
security and 
justice

Our management

32

Measuring performance

Stakeholder appraisal

We apply seven key performance indicators (KPI) to 
monitor progress towards achieving our strategic goals, 
to support decision-making and to provide information 
on our performance.

These indicators aim to measure key elements of the 
quality and impact of our work, and the efficiency and 
effectiveness of the way we use our resources.

We invited our main stakeholders — the European Parlia-
ment’s Committee on Budgetary Control and Committee 
on Budgets, the Budget Committee of the Council, the 
main auditees in the Commission and European agen-
cies, and the heads of EU SAIs — to rate the reports we 
publish. In 2016, similar to previous years, a large major-
ity of the respondents rated the usefulness and impact of 
our reports to be ‘high’ or ‘very high’.

Quality and impact of our work

Stakeholder appraisal

We assess the quality and impact of our reports based on 
stakeholder appraisal, expert reviews and the follow up 
given to our recommendations. In addition, we measure 
our presence in the media.

Usefulness of reports

5

27

45

23

Likely impact of reports

41

26

33

0 %

20 %

40 %

60 %

80 %

100 %

Very low

Low

Medium

High

Very high

Our management

Expert reviews

Each year, independent external experts review the 
content and presentation of a sample of our reports as 
an assessment of quality. In 2016 the reviewers assessed 
six special reports (No 13/2016, No 14/2016, No 23/2016, 
No 25/2016, No 27/2016 and No 29/2016 — see Annex) 
and the 2015 annual reports. They rated the quality of 
various aspects of the reports on a 4-point scale ranging 
from ‘significantly impaired’ (1) to ‘high quality’ (4). The 
results have been very steady in recent years indicating 
the satisfactory quality of our reports.

Expert reviews of ECA's reports

2016

2015

2014

2013

33

3.2

3.3

3.1

3.0

0

1

2

3

4
Quality rating

Implementation of the ECA recommendations by 
year of issuance

100 %

80 %

60 %

40 %

20 %

0 %

97 %

88 %

61 %

35 %

2013 

2014 

2015 

2016

Follow-up of recommendations

A key way we contribute to improving EU financial 
management is through the recommendations we make 
in our audit reports. Some recommendations can be im-
plemented quickly, whereas others take more time due 
to their complexity.

We systematically monitor the extent to which our rec-
ommendations have been implemented by our auditees. 
By the end of 2016, 97 % of our recommendations issued 
in 2013 had been implemented.

In 2016, we introduced an additional milestone for imple-
menting our recommendations, since we systematically 
specified time-limits by when our recommendations 
should have been implemented. On this basis, it will be 
easier to monitor in future years whether our recommen-
dations have been implemented in a timely manner.

Our management

34

Media reference topics

40 %

51 %

9 %

ECA in general

Special reports

Annual repports

In 2016 we identified 
9 000 
online articles 
related to our work  
and institution

Presence in the media

The indicator on our presence in the media provides 
a reflection of our media impact. It relates to the strate-
gic objective of raising awareness of our institution, our 
products and the audit conclusions we draw.

In 2016, we identified some 9 000 articles online related 
to our special reports, annual reports and the institu-
tion in general. Around half of these covered our audit 
reports, while the rest make reference to the institution 
and our work in general. This compares to 3 400 articles 
online in 2015. In addition, there were over 11 500 refer-
ences to our institution and products on social media, 
almost double the figure for 2015.

Not all of our reports receive the same level of media 
coverage. Our most mediatised reports in 2016 were 
special reports on external migration spending, EU aid 
to Ukraine, cross-border health threats, maritime trans-
port and the Single Supervisory Mechanism. We believe 
that the significant overall increase in our media pres-
ence is due to several factors: a higher number of special 
reports, their increased topicality and improved commu-
nication with the press, both with EU correspondents in 
Brussels and journalists in the Member States.

Efficient and effective use of resources

We assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the use of 
our resources in terms of our ability to implement our 
work programme, conduct timely audits and ensure the 
professional competence of our staff.

Implementation of work programme

We plan our audit and other tasks in our annual work 
programme, and monitor progress throughout the year.

In 2016, the annual reports and specific annual reports 
were all implemented as planned. Moreover, 80 % of 
the special reports were published as initially planned. 
This compares to 69 % of our special reports in 2015. The 
remainder were delayed and will be published in 2017.

Our management

35

Production of special reports

In recent years we have managed to shorten the produc-
tion time of our audits. In 2016, we produced our  
36 special reports within our target time frame of 
18 months on average. 25 of these special reports (69 %) 
were produced in less than 18 months. We will continue 
our efforts to further shorten the time to produce our 
special reports within the target time frame specified in 
the new financial regulation.

Duration of special reports produced in 2014-2016

40

30

20

10

0

1 SR  4 %

1 SR  4 %

1 SR  3 %

13 SRs
54 %

10 SRs
42 %

2014 

9 SRs
36 %

15 SRs
60 %

10 SRs
28 %

25 SRs
69 %

2015 
19-26 months

2016 
Longer than 26 months

80 %

10-18 months

Professional training

In accordance with the recommendations issued by 
the International Federation of Accountants, we aim to 
provide an average of 40 hours (5 days) of professional 
training per auditor.

In 2016, we again met our target for professional  training 
for audit staff, reflecting the importance we place on 
staff development. When language training — which is 
needed so that our auditors efficiently can carry out their 
work in all EU Member States — is taken into account, 
our auditors received an average of 10 days of training 
in 2016. When taking into account all staff (i.e. not only 
auditors), training totalled 7.9 days.

Professional training days per auditor per year

s
y
a
D

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Target
≥ 5 days

5.8

6.2

7.0

2014 

2015 

2016

Our staff

36

Staff allocation

ECA staff allocation

137

123

49

Total 862

553

2016 

Audit

Translation

Administration

Presidency

At the end of 2016, there were 839 officials and tem-
porary staff working at our institution (917 including 
contract staff and seconded national experts).

We continued to apply the reduction in staff of 1 % per 
year over a 5-year period (2013-2017) as laid down in the 
interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline and 
sound financial management of December 2013.

As a result, in 2016 our staff allocation was reduced 
from 872 to 862 officials and temporary staff (excluding 
members, contract staff, seconded national experts and 
trainees). Of these, 553 were in audit chambers, including 
118 in private offices of the members.

Recruitment

Our staff has a broad range of academic and professional 
backgrounds. Our recruitment policy follows the general 
principles and employment conditions of the EU institu-
tions, and our workforce comprises both permanent 
officials and staff on temporary contracts. Open competi-
tions are generally organised by the European Personnel 
Selection Office (EPSO). In 2016, we recruited 51 employ-
ees: 19 officials, 13 temporary staff, 14 contract staff, and 
5 seconded national experts. We also provided 88 train-
eeships to university graduates for periods of  
3 to 5 months, including 9 traineeships to auditors from 
Supreme Audit Institutions in candidate countries. At 
31 December 2016, we had 14 vacant posts (1.6 % of the 
total number of posts).

Our staff

Age profile

The age profile of staff in active service at 31 December 
2016 shows around half our staff are aged 44 or less.

27 of our 67 directors and principal managers (40 %) are 
aged 55 or above. This will lead to a renewal of senior 
management over the next 5 to 10 years, as they retire.

37

Age profile

20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-44
45-49
50-54
55-59
60-64
65+

0.1 %

1.9 %

8.3 %

8.9 %

18.0 %

22.2 %

18.9 %

16.9 %

4.3 %

0.5 %

0 %

5 %

10 %

15 %

20 %

25 %

Gender balance

Gender balance by level of responsibility

We have a policy of equal opportunities in our human 
resources management and recruitment. Overall, we 
have reached equal proportions of men and women in 
our workforce and 42 % of our auditors and administra-
tors are female.

Compared to 2015, the share of female managers rose 
from 31 % to 36 %. Our equal opportunities action plan 
aims to achieve a balanced gender split at every level. 
After the latest recruitment campaigns, 51 % of all staff 
at AD5-AD8 levels are female (50 % in 2015). With the re-
newal of senior and middle management the increasing 
share of women at AD levels is expected to contribute to 
a higher proportion of women at management levels in 
the future.

Information on the nationality and gender of manage-
ment is given in the next graph.

Assistants and 
secretaries

Auditors and 
administrators

Management

Total

33 %

58 %

64 %

50 %

67 %

42 %

36 %

50 %

0 %

20 %

40 %

60 %

80 %

100 %

Our staff

38

Managers by nationality and gender as at 31 December 2016

Directors

Principal managers

Nationality*

BELGIAN

BULGARIAN

CZECH

DANISH

GERMAN

ESTONIAN

IRISH

GREEK

SPANISH

FRENCH

CROATIAN

ITALIAN

CYPRIOT

LATVIAN

LITHUANIAN

LUXEMBOURGISH

HUNGARIAN

MALTESE

DUTCH

AUSTRIAN

POLISH

PORTUGUESE

ROMANIAN

SLOVENIAN

SLOVAKIAN

FINNISH

SWEDISH

BRITISH

24

Directors
9

36 %

43 

Total managers
67

64 %

Principal 
managers
58 

13 %

Total managers
67

87 %

* Presented in Member State protocol order.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Support to audit

39

Professional training

Translation

We continued to support continuous professional devel-
opment of our staff through the courses we offered as 
well as through our financial support for staff involved 
in programmes of acquisition or maintenance of profes-
sional qualifications and diplomas in areas relevant to 
our role and work.

Within the interinstitutional framework, we continued 
to develop our close cooperation with the European 
Commission and European School of Administration. 
In addition, we expanded the range of courses on offer 
with e-learning courses and continued our successful 
series of presentations by internal or external experts on 
developments in the field of audit or on subjects related 
to the work of our auditors.

We also launched the pilot year of the postgraduate 
university diploma in ‘Audit of public organisations and 
policies’ and a master's degree programme on ‘Manage-
ment of public organisations’ in cooperation with the 
University of Lorraine. Furthermore, auditors from six 
other  Supreme Audit Institutions visited our institution 
to present their audit methodologies to our staff on the 
occasion of our annual training day.

Our Translation and Language Services Directorate trans-
lated and revised 230 640 pages, which is 16 % more 
than in 2015 and our highest number yet. We continued 
our Clear Language Campaign by organising a confer-
ence and workshops for non-native speakers of English 
involved in drafting. For a number of reports, transla-
tors provided drafting support to the audit teams. In 
addition, our translators provided language support for 
auditors on 34 on-the-spot audit visits (audit missions) 
totalling 30 weeks (compared to 26 missions with a total 
of 22 weeks in 2015) as well as interpretation at events 
we organised.

Information technology

During 2016, the Directorate for Information and Tech-
nology has become the Directorate for Information, 
Workplace and Innovation consisting of information 
technology, information management (library and 
archives) and buildings infrastructure services. This 
reorganisation was in response to the need to take into 
consideration both physical and digital components 
when designing activity-based workspaces.

We have replaced and upgraded the full storage infra-
structure in our data centres, increased the capacity of 
the internet access and filter, migrated the email system 
from Lotus Notes to Outlook, and started upgrading 
or migrating several human resources management 
systems.

All developments and deliveries have been achieved 
with due regard to managing the risks and ensuring 
security of operations and business continuity.

Support to audit

40

Buildings

We currently own three buildings (‘K1’, ‘K2’ and ‘K3’) and 
rent office space for our disaster recovery centre in Lux-
embourg. We also rent a meeting room and three offices 
in the European Parliament in Brussels and one office in 
Strasbourg.

The K1 building

The K1 building opened in 1988. It contains offices for 
up to 310 staff and meeting rooms. The basement levels 
contain the car parks, technical facilities, storage areas, 
the library and the main archive room, while the upper 
floor is used entirely for technical facilities.

K1 was modernised in 2008 to bring it into conformity 
with national health, safety and environmental require-
ments. Wherever possible, the technology in K1 was 
adapted to make it compatible with the one used in K2 
and K3. As a result, the three buildings, to the maximum 
degree possible, operate as a single, integrated technical 
entity.

We are committed to continue improving our workplace 
environment to further increase efficiency of our work. In 
2016 we created open office spaces on one of the floors 
of the K1 building, from which we will gain useful experi-
ence for the future activity-based workspaces in K2.

We are currently carrying out feasibility studies with the 
aim to upgrade it from the point of view of environmen-
tal requirements.

K1 building

1988

26 550 m2

310

K3 building

2012

34 500 m2

503

K2 building

2003

21 500 m2

241

Construction year

Total gross surface 
area (m2)

Workplaces

Sketch of ECA buildings

Support to audit

41

The K2 building

Environmental management

As an EU institution, we believe we have a duty to apply 
the principles of sound environmental management in 
all our activities. We launched the implementation of an 
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) in 2014 and 
in 2016 our institution obtained a positive recommenda-
tion for the EMAS certification. In addition, we obtained 
an ISO 14001:2004 certificate for our environmental 
management system.

In 2016, and for the second consecutive year, we ana-
lysed the greenhouse gas emissions generated by our 
activities, with the aim of systematically cutting our CO2 
emissions. The results of this Carbon Footprint study are 
available on our website (eca.europa.eu).

In 2016, we introduced an e-publishing policy for our 
special reports: they are now published online and dis-
tributed electronically.

The K2 building opened in 2003. The basement levels 
contain the car parks, technical facilities and storage, and 
the fitness centre. The top floor is used entirely for tech-
nical facilities. The remaining floors are used for offices 
for up to 241 staff, meeting rooms, a conference room 
with interpreting booths, videoconferencing rooms, 
a cafeteria and basic kitchen areas.

K2 has an authorisation to operate (conformity certifi-
cate) until end of 2017. By this date, it will be necessary 
to have a new authorisation and to upgrade the build-
ing to bring it in line with the current health, safety and 
environmental standards. As agreed by the Council and 
the European Parliament in March 2014, we will cover the 
cost of this upgrade from the remaining budget of the K3 
construction project completed a few years ago.

The K3 building

The K3 building opened in 2012. The basement levels 
contain car parks, technical facilities and storage, unload-
ing bays, waste storage facilities, the print shop, kitchens 
and archives. The ground floor comprises the canteen, 
cafeteria and training rooms. There are also offices for 
up to 503 staff, meeting rooms and an IT room. The sixth 
floor comprises reception rooms, a kitchen and techni-
cal facilities. The K3 building has a ‘very good’ certifica-
tion (BREEAM) obtained through the world’s leading 
method of evaluating and certifying the sustainability of 
buildings.

Staff safety is crucial for us, as for all other EU institutions. 
We launched a project in 2016 to reinforce the security of 
our institution, involving the construction of a new fence, 
improved video surveillance systems, baggage  scanners, 
secure revolving doors at building entrances, a new 
security control centre and an external accreditation and 
access control centre for staff and visitors. The project 
progressed according to plan. Baggage scanners and 
secure revolving doors are already in place and operat-
ing. The infrastructure components of the project will be 
completed by the end of 2017.

Our accountability

42

Financial information

We are financed by the general budget of the European 
Union. Our budget is entirely administrative expenditure. 
In 2016 it accounted for around €137.6 million, represent-
ing less than 0.1 % of total EU spending or around 1.5 % 
of total administrative spending. The overall rate of 
implementation was 99 %.

Implementation of the 2016 budget (in thousand euro)

Final 
appropriations

Commitments

% use (commit/ 
appro)

Payments

2016 FINANCIAL YEAR

Title 1: People working with the institution

10 — Members of the institution

12 — Officials and temporary staff

14 — Other staff and external services

162 — Missions

161 + 163 + 165 — Other expenditure relating to persons 
working for the institution

11 540

98 000

5 099

3 355

2 594

11 091

97 629

4 993

3 146

2 559

Subtotal Title 1

120 588

119 418

Title 2: Buildings, movable property, equipment and miscellaneous operating expenditure

20 — Immovable property

210 — IT&T

212 + 214 + 216 — Movable property and associated costs

23 — Current administrative expenditure

25 — Meetings, conferences

27 — Information and publishing

Subtotal Title 2

Total

4 843

8 241

864

427

706

1 888

16 969

4 843

8 241

805

393

630

1 737

16 649

137 557

136 067

96 %

99 %

98 %

94 %

98 %

99 %

100 %

100 %

93 %

92 %

89 %

92 %

98 %

99 %

10 970

97 629

4 918

2 460

1 996

117 973

2 014

4 361

696

235

471

1 182

8 959

126 932

Our accountability

43

Budget for 2017

The 2017 budget represents an increase of 2.7 % on the 
2016 budget.

Budget for 2017

BUDGET

Title 1: People working with the institution

10 — Members of the institution

12 — Officials and temporary staff

14 — Other staff and external services

162 — Missions

161 + 163 + 165 — Other expenditure relating to persons 
working for the institution

2017
(thousand euro)

2016
(thousand euro)

11 300

103 632

5 101

3 450

2 788

10 885

98 881

4 946

3 600

2 559

Subtotal Title 1

126 271

120 801

Title 2: Buildings, movable property, equipment and miscellaneous operating expenditure

20 — Immovable property

210 — IT&T

212 + 214 + 216 — Movable property and associated costs

23 — Current administrative expenditure

25 — Meetings, conferences

27 — Information and publishing

Subtotal Title 2

Total

3 216

7 408

925

438

676

2 306

14 969

141 240

4 911

7 347

882

439

706

2 401

16 686

137 557

Our accountability

44

Risk management

External audit

In 2016, we adopted a corporate risk management policy. 
Each of our directorates now assesses the risks  associated 
with its activities, which we review on a yearly basis in or-
der to put in place action plans for managing those risks.

We take these plans into account in designing and 
carrying out our internal checks, which we ensure are 
cost-effective. Our internal control systems form a basis 
for the annual assurance by our Secretary-General on the 
soundness of our work, which is presented in this activity 
report and will be used for next year’s risk assessments.

Our annual accounts are audited by an independent 
external auditor. This is as an important aspect of our 
institution, applying the same principles of transparency 
and accountability to ourselves as we do to our auditees. 
The report of the external auditor — Pricewaterhouse-
Coopers Sàrl — on our accounts for the 2015 financial 
year was published on 30 August 2016.

Opinions of the external auditor — 2015 
financial year

Internal and external audits

Regarding the financial statements:

Internal audit

Our Internal Audit Service (IAS) advises our institution on 
how to manage risks by issuing opinions on the quality 
of management and internal control systems. Its activity 
is monitored by an audit committee composed of three 
of our members and an external expert. The committee 
regularly monitors the progress of the various tasks set 
out in the IAS annual work programme and ensures its 
independence.

In 2016, the IAS examined our management  reporting 
system, contract management, IT investments and the 
management of library and archive services. It also 
reviewed the implementation of our new risk manage-
ment policy and monitored the implementation of its 
recommendations, ensuring that the action plans were 
implemented.

We report to the Parliament and the Council every year 
on the results of our internal audit activity.

‘In our opinion, the financial statements give a 
true and fair view of the financial position of the 
European Court of Auditors as of 31 December 
2015, and of its financial performance, its cash 
flows and the changes in net assets for the year 
then ended in accordance with the Regulation 
(EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European 
Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 
on the financial rules applicable to the general 
budget of the Union; and repealing Council Regu-
lation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 26 October 
2012 (the financial regulation); and with the Com-
mission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 1268/2012 
of 29 October 2012 on the rules of application of 
the financial regulation.’

Regarding the use of resources and the control 
of procedures:

‘Based on our work described in this report, noth-
ing has come to our attention that causes us to 
believe that in all material respects and based on 
the criteria described above:

 -

 -

the resources assigned to the ECA have not 
been used for their intended purposes;

the control procedures in place do not provide 
the necessary guarantees to ensure the compli-
ance of financial operations with the applicable 
rules and regulations.’

Our accountability

45

Discharge

Like all other EU institutions, we are subject to the dis-
charge process. In April 2016, the European Parliament 
granted our Secretary-General discharge in respect of 
the implementation of our budget for the 2014 financial 
year, meaning that our accounts for 2014 were closed 
and approved.

We have carefully analysed all issues raised during the 
discharge exercise regarding our audit and management 
responsibilities, taken appropriate action and reported 
on our follow-up actions to the European Parliament.

Declaration by the authorising 
officer by delegation

46

I, the undersigned, Secretary-General of the European Court of Auditors, in my capacity as 
authorising officer by delegation, hereby:

 •

 •

 -

 -

declare that the information contained in this report is true and accurate; and

state that I have reasonable assurance that:

the resources assigned to the activities described in this report have been used for 
their intended purpose and in accordance with the principles of sound financial 
management;

the control procedures in place provide the necessary guarantees concerning the 
legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts and ensure an 
adequate treatment of allegations of fraud, or suspected fraud;

 -

the benefits of controls are in proportion to the costs.

This assurance is based on my judgement and on the information at my disposal, such as 
the reports and declarations of the authorising officers by sub-delegation, the reports of 
the internal auditor and the reports of the external auditor for previous financial years.

I confirm that I am not aware of anything not reported here which could be detrimental to 
the interests of the institution.

Done at Luxembourg, 16 February 2017

Eduardo Ruiz García
Secretary-General

Annex — special reports 2016

47

 •

 •
 •
 •

 •
 •
 •
 •
 •

 •
 •

 •
 •
 •

 •

 •
 •
 •
 •

 •

 •

 •

 •
 •

Is the Commission’s system for performance measurement in relation to farmers’ incomes well designed and 
based on sound data? (01/2016)

2014 report on the follow-up of the European Court of Auditors’ Special Reports (02/2016)

Combating eutrophication in the Baltic Sea: further and more effective action needed (03/2016)

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology must modify its delivery mechanisms and elements of its 
design to achieve the expected impact (04/2016)

Has the Commission ensured effective implementation of the Services Directive? (05/2016)

Eradication, control and monitoring programmes to contain animal diseases (06/2016)

The European External Action Service’s management of its buildings around the world (07/2016)

Rail freight transport in the EU: still not on the right track (08/2016)

EU external migration spending in Southern Mediterranean and Eastern Neighbourhood countries until 2014 
(09/2016)

Further improvements needed to ensure effective implementation of the excessive deficit procedure (10/2016)

Strengthening administrative capacity in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: limited progress in a dif-
ficult context (11/2016)

Agencies’ use of grants: not always appropriate or demonstrably effective (12/2016)

EU assistance for strengthening the public administration in Moldova (13/2016)

EU policy initiatives and financial support for Roma integration: significant progress made over the last decade, 
but additional efforts needed on the ground (14/2016)

Did the Commission effectively manage the Humanitarian aid provided to populations affected by conflicts in 
the African Great Lakes Region? (15/2016)

EU education objectives: programmes aligned but shortcomings in performance measurement (16/2016)

The EU institutions can do more to facilitate access to their public procurement (17/2016)

The EU system for the certification of sustainable biofuels (18/2016)

Implementing the EU budget through financial instruments — lessons to be learnt from the 2007-2013 pro-
gramme period (19/2016)

Strengthening administrative capacity in Montenegro: progress but better results needed in many key areas 
(20/2016)

EU pre-accession assistance for strengthening administrative capacity in the Western Balkans: A meta-audit 
(21/2016)

EU nuclear decommissioning assistance programmes in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovakia: some progress made 
since 2011, but critical challenges ahead (22/2016)

Maritime transport in the EU: in troubled waters — much ineffective and unsustainable investment (23/2016)

More efforts needed to raise awareness of and enforce compliance with State aid rules in cohesion policy 
(24/2016)

Annex — special reports 2016

48

 •

 •
 •
 •

 •
 •
 •

 •
 •

 •

 •
 •

The Land Parcel Identification System: a useful tool to determine the eligibility of agricultural land – but its man-
agement could be further improved (25/2016)

Making cross-compliance more effective and achieving simplification remains challenging (26/2016)

Governance at the European Commission — best practice? (27/2016)

Dealing with serious cross-border threats to health in the EU: important steps taken but more needs to be done 
(28/2016)

Single Supervisory Mechanism — Good start but further improvements needed (29/2016)

The effectiveness of EU support to priority sectors in Honduras (30/2016)

Spending at least one euro in every five from the EU budget on climate action: ambitious work underway, but at 
serious risk of falling short (31/2016)

EU assistance to Ukraine (32/2016)

Union Civil Protection Mechanism: the coordination of responses to disasters outside the EU has been broadly 
effective (33/2016)

Combating Food Waste: an opportunity for the EU to improve the resource-efficiency of the food supply chain 
(34/2016)

The use of budget support to improve domestic revenue mobilisation in sub-Saharan Africa (35/2016)

An assessment of the arrangements for closure of the 2007-2013 cohesion and rural development programmes 
(36/2016)

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