Paul Stephenson’s chapter ‘The European Parliament’s use of the European Court of Auditors’ special reports in the scrutiny of EU budgetary performance’ was written after his presentation at the workshop ‘Better regulation:scrutiny of EU policies’ held in Florence at the EUI, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies on 27 February 2017. The volume, edited by Alfredo de Feo and Brigid Laffan, is free to download.
“In a period of deep crisis of the European project, of a scarcity of financial resources and with the EU facing new challenges, a rationalization and a concentration of resources would make its policies more efficient. Scrutiny of the implementation of EU legislation should be part of this process to make EU policies more focused on European priorities. EU scrutiny should not remain a concept managed internally by each institution but should complete the legislative cycle in order to deliver better regulation. Is this already happening? How can better scrutiny be achieved? How could scrutiny of EU policies contribute to a reform of the EU? These are some of the questions which were addressed during the workshop held at the RSCAS EUI in February 2017 in Florence and which can find some answers in the contributions collected in this publication. The articles published in this edited volume give a wide overview of how the initiatives Better Regulation and a Budget Focused on Results have started to frame EU policies in a new dimension, favouring the efficiency and effectiveness of EU policies. However, this process is not yet embedded in political decision-making. A further reflection on how measurement of the results of EU policies could contribute to more informed decisions should constitute a supplementary step that academics and institutions need to make.”
