Question for written answer E-005689/2021
to the Commission
Rule 138
Lídia Pereira (PPE), Maria da Graça Carvalho (PPE)
Subject: Conclusions of the Portuguese Court of Auditors audit on public finance reform
The Portuguese Court of Auditors has published the audit report on the implementation of the Law on Budgetary Principles (LEO) and the Accounting Standards System for Public Administrations (SNC-AP)(1). In this report, the Court of Auditors states that the degree of implementation of public finance reform is low, in an assessment of the recommendations on implementation processes planned since 2017.
The assertion that there is a lack of political leadership on the part of the Ministry of Finance and an absence of implementation capacity within the Implementation Unit for the Law on Budgetary Principles (UniLEO), due to an obvious lack of resources, and primarily human resources, is particularly serious. The governance model has been under review since March 2019. UniLEO has had no technical staff since June 2020. This situation should be considered serious.
Considering that the Recovery and Resilience Plan provides for an investment of around EUR 123 million in reforms postponed since 2017, the following question arises in this connection:
How does the Commission assess the reforms proposed in the Portuguese RRP in terms of public finances, given these findings by the Portuguese Court of Auditors?
Supporter(2)
(1) https://www.tcontas.pt/pt-pt/ProdutosTC/Relatorios/RelatoriosAuditoria/Documents/2021/rel014-2021-2s.pdf
(2) This question is supported by a Member other than the authors: Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar (PPE)