The Normative Framework of Financial Accountability in the EU: The European Court of Auditors in Search for Legitimacy

Financial accountability is closely related to legal rules, e.g. to the legal framework for the European Court of Auditors (ECA) and for the implementation of the EU budget laid down in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), and to the regulations governing EU funding programs. However, even if this legal framework at first glance seems to be dense, the practical work of financial accountability institutions is not legally regulated in detail. Audit institutions have considerable discretion when it comes to defining their audit work. For example, legal rules do not govern how to select the programs and projects to be audited more closely or how to carry out the audits.

This paper discusses how legal rules, internal rules defined by the European Court of Auditors, professional standards and case-by-case discretion interact and overlap in the regulation of auditing and financial accountability in the EU and how they are related to the ECA’s search for legitimacy.