On 27 and 28 June 2019, Warsaw hosted regular annual meeting of the Contact Committee of the Heads of the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the EU member countries and the European Court of Auditors. It was attended by the representatives of all EU SAIs and of candidate member countries, potential candidate countries and observer countries. The Contact Committee is an autonomous, independent and apolitical discussion forum addressing the topics of common professional interest with the aim of contributing to the improvement of financial and overall management of the EU, as well as encouraging contacts and the exchange of information among the interested parties.
Heads of delegations of the EU SAIs also met with the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, who pointed out an important role of the SAIs and the European Court of Auditors in the EU. He also highlighted the cooperation of the European SAIs in the field of environmental audits and the challenges posed by the digitalisation in public administration. The focus was also on the services provided to citizens which were discussed at the Contact Committee meeting.
The main topic of the Contact Committee meeting in Poland was Digital Europe: Challenges and Opportunities for EU SAIs.
President of the Court of Audit, Tomaž Vesel, participated in the panel discussion entitled Challenges and opportunities of carrying out performance audits related to EU and national programmes in the area of e-Government and cybersecurity. Mr Vesel thus presented the activities of the Court of Audit in the field of IT audits and pointed out a few examples of those already carried out, such as the audit of effectiveness of the implementation of the eHealth project, the audit of efficiency and effectiveness of VAT collection, the audit of an information system of the Customs Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, and the performance audit of the use of budgetary resources for the implementation of the project Public Procurement Portal. Mentioned was also the audit of efficiency of regulating virtual currencies.
The Court of Audit presented its work also through the video of its own production which was released upon the issue of the audit report Efficiency of long-term drinking water resources conservation. In 2020, the Contact Committee meeting will be organised in Luxembourg by the European Court of Auditors.