Press release, 13 March 2013
Vydas Gedvilas, Speaker of the Seimas, met with Rasa Budbergytė, Member of the European Court of Auditors. He thanked her for her excellent service at the European body and highlighted that Lithuania as well as other Member States consider the remarks of the European Court of Auditors to be important. In his opinion, the recommendations of the Court grow in relevance in view of the fact that during the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU preparations will be made for the implementation of the new EU budget for 2014–2020.
Vydas Gedvilas and Rasa Budbergytė. Photography by Olga Posaškova (Seimas Office)
At the meeting, Budbergytė, Member of the Court of Auditors since 2010, discussed the Court’s annual report on the implementation of the 2011 EU budget, which will also be presented to the Seimas Committee on Audit. She underlined that EU financial reporting in 2011 was free from material error. However, payments were affected by material error, with a rather significant estimated error rate of 3.9 % associated with legality and regularity of the use of funds. This indicator stood at 3.7 % in 2010. Budbergytė said that the control systems of the European Commission and the Member States, including Lithuania, were only partially effective, because auditors established violations of legislation in roughly one in two payments from the EU budget they subjected to control.
Budbergytė noted that Lithuania’s contribution to the EU budget in 2011 accounted for EUR 302 million and the payments it received from the EU were five times greater, amounting to over EUR 1.6 billion. Most of the received funds (over a billion Euros) were used for cohesion, with agriculture and rural development funding standing second at over 0.5 billion.
In her concluding remarks on the recommendations of the European Court of Auditors, Budbergytė underlined that the European Commission and Member States should ensure stricter adherence to the established rules on EU budget funding.
Nerijus Vėta, Public Relations Unit, tel: +370 5 239 6208, e-mail: [email protected]
