Karlsson claimed that the exercise, which has seen the audits for the last 17 years fail to give the EU's accounts a clean bill of health, is "misunderstood" by the public who "perceived the exercise as an investigation into corruption in the European institutions."
Jules Muis, a former chief internal auditor of the European Commission, agreed the annual exercise should be scrapped in favour of an audit every five years.
Muis added that the mandate of the court should be overhauled, calling for it to move from being "an almost exclusive auditing and accounting agency into a broader accountability agency" acting more as an independent accountability body.
The European Commission says that most irregularities in EU spending are committed at national level. Around 80 per cent of EU budget spending is distributed by national governments.
Currently only four Member States use a "national management declaration" which certifies that the accounts have been accurately verified, with governments blocking attempts to make it mandatory.
MEPs also raised concerns about the accountability of the raft of new financial instruments being formulated by the Commission and other institutions in response to the financial crisis, particularly the new EU bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, which comes into force in July.
MEPs are also drawing up a report on the future role of the Court and its appointment procedures. Muis and Karlsson argue that ECA members should be selected on professional grounds, abolishing the one-country one-member requirement.
Press release
© EUobserver.com
Key
Hover over the blue highlighted
text to view the acronym meaning
Hover
over these icons for more information
Comments:
No Comments for this Article