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Brenninkmeijer, Alex --- "Audit and administrative law" [2017] ELECD 426; in Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 344

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law

Editor(s): Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710675

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: Audit and administrative law

Author(s): Brenninkmeijer, Alex

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

Distrust of European citizens in the European project makes control, and especially financial control, increasingly important. The daily news on EU policy shows many financial incidents which are easily bookmarked by journalists and commentators as ‘fraud’ or ‘corruption’. Although this blackened picture is too harsh, inter alia the retreat in 1999 of the Santer Commission has shown that the control of EU spending is quintessential. The intensified focus on financial control gave a boost to EU regulation of the financing of EU projects. This implied that over the years ‘financial administrative law’ has come to play a more substantial role as part of EU law. Moreover, the introduction of shared management and shared financing by the European Commission and Member States and the introduction of other more complex financial instruments expanded the scope of financial administrative law. In the same way, internal audit, audit by the Commission and external audit by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) have developed into a set of instruments to control the EU’s spending more effectively. For that reason it is important to explore the precise relationship between audit and administrative law. Judicial courts control legality and the correct application of European administrative law in cases which are brought before them by direct actions or by requests for preliminary rulings by national courts; in general, on a case-by-case basis. The control of compliance with administrative law rules by auditors is more systematic.