DIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR INTERNAL POLICIES POLICY DEPARTMENT D: BUDGETARY AFFAIRS How do national parliaments supervise and control their own budgets? Practice and experience from selected Member States STUDY Abstract The study assesses the budget discharge procedures in ten EU Member States and one Third Country (Canada), in order to identify good practices to help the European Parliament to enhance its own budget discharge procedure. The focus is on the effectiveness of the national budget discharge procedures, in terms of achieving two objectives, i.e. to ensure sound financial management and to enhance transparency. The study takes the European Parliament’s budget discharge procedure as a point of reference in order to better understand the national parliaments’ procedures. The study findings identify best practices that might contribute to a further enhancement of the European Parliament’s budget discharge procedure in the following areas: a robust and trust instilling multi-facetted auditing framework; public transparency and accessibility of the budget; documentary basis; fostering accountability in Members of Parliament’s expenses; building skills; formalising the discharge procedure. IP/D/ALL/FWC/2009-056 24/10/2012 PE 490.662 EN This document was requested by the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Affairs. It designated Mr Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy to follow the study AUTHORS Blomeyer & Sanz c/cerezos 545b - cd 250 el clavin, es-19163 Guadalajara +34 650 480 051
[email protected] www.blomeyer.eu RESPONSIBLE ADMINISTRATOR Ms Beata Grzebieluch Policy Department D: Budgetary Affairs European Parliament B-1047 Brussels E-mail:
[email protected] LINGUISTIC VERSIONS Original: EN Translation: FR and DE ABOUT THE EDITOR To contact the Policy Department or to subscribe to its newsletter please write to:
[email protected] Manuscript completed in July 2012.